


How You Turned My World, You Precious Thing

by KrystalMoon



Series: To Love a Goblin King [2]
Category: Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Romance, Trauma, War, Wedding Planning
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-07
Updated: 2018-11-11
Packaged: 2019-07-27 17:30:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 30,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16223903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KrystalMoon/pseuds/KrystalMoon
Summary: With a wedding around the corner, Sarah's filled with doubts and worries. It's been a couple months after she last saw Toby, and she's starting to feel a little homesick. But someone seeks to stop the wedding completely in its tracks. Is it already too late?





	1. Tight Leather Sparkly Pants

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer:**  
> Besides the OCs scattered here and there to fill in, and my takes on certain characters and overall general rules, this work is purely a work of fanfiction and not intended for any profit, whatsoever.  
> The main setting and characters come from a wonderful movie called "the Labyrinth"  
> Titania and Oberon's depiction is based off of their appearance in one of my favorite mangas called "The Ancient Magus' Bride." Some Faerie rules and lore were pulled from that as well.
> 
> Please enjoy~

White flecks fell from the darkened grey sky, gently dusting all things it fell upon. The leafless trees, the numerous stone walls of the labyrinth, the city at the center, and the castle. The air was cold, nearly bitingly so. The goblins mostly stayed indoors, but some ventured outside to play in the soft fluff which had blanketed the ground, making new tracks in the fresh sheet that had coated the lands. Crystalline ice hung from anywhere possible. Some impressively large glittering stalactites formed upon the castle. Truly, winter made the labyrinth look like a wonderland, glistening in the sun were it to shine through. But on grey snowy days like this, it made it look gloomy.

A single figure stuck out like a sore thumb against the pure white around him, cloaked in absolute black, trudging through the snow towards the labyrinth with purpose. His hair was as white as the snow around him, black horns twisting out from the crown of his head. His slate grey skin made him look impressive, making his lighter-grey eyes seem to glow. This was Madoc, the High King of the Unseelie Court, otherwise known as the Erlking. The labyrinth itself allowed him to pass through quickly. Within half an hour he would be at the castle, his destination.

At the castle, in the throne room, was a large gathering of goblins, all centered around a human child no older than a year. He was amused by the antics of the goblins, and seemed to enjoy their funny faces they made at him. He clapped his hands and giggled, his curly brown hair reminding someone of her own baby brother she had left months ago.

A beautiful fae with long pointed ears poking out of her straight chocolate colored, waist length hair sat upon the king’s lap, tears glistening against her cheeks, falling from her large green eyes gently like the snow outside. She wore a jacket too big for her draped around her shoulders, a puffy white shirt underneath with a leather vest around her core, effectively showing off her chest. A decorative sickle-shaped pendant sat between her clavicle, held there by a thick chain. This was Sarah, formally a human girl not more than four months ago. A month prior to that, she had visited the labyrinth as an adversary to the male behind her, having wished away her baby half-brother Toby to the goblins after a long day and being fed up with babysitting him so often.

During her first trip here, she accidentally ingested faerie food, unaware of the fact she was in a faerie kingdom, and was forced to come back to the labyrinth or die. She sought the king out in an attempt to get him to reverse the effects of the faerie food, but found he was unable to. In a weird rush of twisted events, including the discovery that he had long already fallen in love with her, she found herself to be wed to the king, and became a fae herself.

A fae was a powerful faerie. Immortal, and almost godlike in human terms minus the omnipotence, fae were gifted with powers specific to their sphere of protection. Sarah was still trying to find what hers was, but there wasn’t a rush to figure it out.

The king, Jareth, whom she was sitting in the lap of, had a very concerned expression upon his pointed, perfect features. Jareth’s mismatched eyes gave him a particular appearance. His right eye was a beautiful light, icy blue, the other, a deep coal-black. His wild, fluffy near-white blond hair stuck out as if he had a permanent bed head, but it only seemed to enhance his handsome features and give him an overall rebellious look about him. His thin lips were tightened in his worry over Sarah. Carefully, he moved a delicately black-gloved hand to hers, and squeezed it gently, causing her to twist suddenly and tuck her face into the nape of his neck. Lovingly, he stroked her hair whispering to her in such a way that only she could hear. He was the owner of the too-big-for-her jacket. He seemed to be dressed to match, complete with a larger version of the same pendant she wore glittering upon the bare part of his chest from the half open white shirt which he wore under a black vest. His lacy sleeves made the outfit look somewhat ragged in a purposeful type of way. Both he and the lady wore tight pants, and knee high boots. And if it were not obvious by the way they dressed that they were together, the words he spoke made it so.

“Sarah… Don’t cry, my love.” The male’s tone was a rough baritone, and accented in such a similar way to a proper Englishman, though he was no man. Much like the lady he now soothed, he was a fae, his pointed ears not quite as prominently displayed like the female’s due to his hair, but they were just as pointed and long. This was the Goblin King, the son of Titania and Oberon, who were High Queen and High King respectively of the Seelie Courts, and brother to Ariel, king of the Spring Court, and Mab, queen of the Winter Court.

A little girl named Lucy, maybe a little older than seven, sat on the step next to the throne, seemingly unaware of the two. Her large, deep blue colored eyes swept the room, a troubled expression upon her doll-like face. Her hip length wavy platinum-blonde hair was braided in such a manner that made her look as though she wore a crown upon her head, a bow decorating the back of her head where the braids met with the rest of the hair that tumbled down her back. Her ears weren’t quite as long and pointed as the king and his love, but they were still delicate nonetheless. Her dress was a glittery blue that almost made it look like the night sky. She liked it because it was velvety. Like Sarah, Lucy was also human about four months prior. She had been wished away by her brother who she was under the care of at the time while her mother had been inebriated. But unlike Toby, her sibling did not come for her.

Something caught the king’s eye, and he stared at the large crystal orb that was held on a mahogany claw-footed pedestal not far from him. The concern that was on his face was quickly replaced with curiosity as he observed the Erlking’s approach through the labyrinth.

“Madoc is visiting at a terrible time,” he muttered gruffly, leaning forward a bit, adjusting Sarah so she sat more comfortably against him.

“Who’s that?” Lucy turned to look up at the king, appearing a little uneasy. “He looks a little scary.”

“He’s not a big fan of humans,” he said carefully. “If that girl runs into him, she might be done for.” Sarah moved slightly to get a better view of the crystal, prompting Jareth to kiss her forehead softly and hold her tightly against him, laying his cheek against where he kissed her as if sealing it in.

Madoc and Sarah had a tense moment before a court meeting which had been held to determine if Sarah was fit to be queen and if Jareth should stay in the Winter Court. But to her, Madoc seemed to soften and warm up.

Sarah closed her eyes, enjoying the warmth of Jareth’s neck against her cheek. Here, in his arms, surrounded by his warmth and his smell, Sarah felt immensely safe. He was a powerful fae, seasoned, and as tricky as they come. He had a cruel streak in him Sarah never really experienced because Jareth had always had a soft spot for her. But she did get to witness his cruelty and dangerous temper on some occasions when it was directed on others for one reason or another. During the court session, his ex-girlfriend, Maeve, who he had been arranged to be betrothed to most recently before, had forcefully manhandled Sarah while Jareth’s power was being suppressed during the hearing. The moment he got it back, he slammed her into the solid granite wall hard enough that it cracked it. And yet, so enslaved was this dangerous faerie to Sarah’s heart that he would move the stars, reorder time, and turn the world upside down for her. Not realizing it then, Sarah understood it now to be because of a very rare instance where a  couple fall in love and it binds their fates. Taboo between fae and human, as fae are immortal and a human is not. Thus, the reason she ultimately became a fae. She could have anything she wanted, if she asked for it, within reason of course. But it wasn’t one-sided anymore. Once she realized his offer for her wasn’t contingent upon Toby, Sarah knew her heart was just as enslaved to his as his was to hers. And so it would be that soon Sarah would wed the Goblin King, and become Queen.

Sarah sighed heavily in such a way that seemed to satisfy her, stress and sadness just disappearing with the air she expelled, leaving her chest feeling free and without a weight upon it.

The goblins cheered loudly, causing both Sarah and Jareth to jump. But it was over nothing important. The goblins had picked the baby up and helped him walk from one goblin to another. Jareth cursed at them soundly, causing them to grovel and apologize. As hard as he could be on them they were still all quite special to him as well. As Sarah found out when Jareth memory-shared the past couple years with her, the goblins that he allowed to be in the throne room were all the children that were wished away. He took care of them and made sure they were comfortable and happy.

Sarah stood up. Jareth reached out and seemed as though he were about to yank her back, but instead he just let her hand slip out of his. She looked back at him as he looked at her sadly, then continued to walk, approaching the crystal. It was still showing Madoc’s approach as walls moved before him and shut behind him. Movement of something behind Madoc had caught her eye.

“Jareth?”

Something in her tone must have tipped him off that something was amiss. He got up immediately without her having to say much more and in two long strides was behind her. He pressed his  palms onto her upper arms and looked over the top of her head at the orb.

Madoc was being granted shortcut access through the labyrinth, speeding up his approach to the castle. But he wasn’t the only one taking advantage of the access given to him. So was the girl trying to get her brother back. Quick as a flash, Jareth appeared before Madoc, stopping him in his tracks. Sarah still felt the impression he left on her arms for a moment, as if he hadn’t really disappeared. She had to look to make sure though, touching the spot on her right arm where his hand had been only a second ago.

Jareth and Madoc both turned to face the girl who had become rigid as a board upon Jareth’s arrival. She had to know she was in big trouble. Her dark brown eyes were wide, her bright flame red hair so distinctively easy to spot, Sarah wondered why the Erlking hadn’t noticed her running in behind him as the walls closed.

“Did you think I wouldn’t notice you cheating?” Jareth asked, his voice light and friendly, though Sarah knew not to trust that tone from her own experience.

“There aren’t any rules to this place,” the red-headed girl snapped at him. “You’re just mad I outsmarted you.”

The goblins in the throne room all collectively “oooOOOOOoooo’d” at once. One said “uh oh, she’s gonna get it.” Even Lucy shook her head.

“You outsmarted me, did you?” Jareth asked, repeating her word in a velvety tone. It was the same tone he used on Sarah when she tried to get under his skin by calling his labyrinth a piece of cake. “Well. I don’t know how I could possibly come back from that.” Jareth smiled that mischievous, wicked grin of his, stepping forward in such a way that made the red head shrink back in terror.

A trap opened up beneath the red-haired girl and she fell down it with a terrified scream. The crystal followed her progress all the way down, the Goblin King’s laughter echoing from behind her as she slid right into an oubliette. The girl began to wither and scream in frustration, pounding her fist against the floor.

It wasn’t that she felt entirely sorry for the girl. After all, she did not learn from the first time she had a smart mouth with Jareth that it wasn’t something good to do. But still, Sarah felt she was responsible for helping her out of the oubliette. She touched the crystal and was teleported to the girl instantly.

The crystal had not prepared Sarah for how dark the oubliette was. It felt as though the darkness were solid and in Sarah’s face, but the coldness of the air and the dank smell extended further than wall of blackness. The oubliette Sarah had fell into at least had a little light coming from the top. This one had none. Sarah closed her eyes and attempted to summon a crystal, like Jareth showed her, but the girl’s screams were cutting into her skull.

“Stop it. Be quiet,” Sarah demanded the shrieking girl. The girl stopped immediately, and gasped in shock.

“Who are you?” the girl asked hoarsely.

“It does not matter who I am,” Sarah said after much deliberation. She found she couldn’t lie, but she did not want to admit to who she was just yet. “What matters is that it is dark, and I’m trying to concentrate.”

Finally, Sarah managed to get one to come, though, unlike Jareth’s smooth orbs, it was instead a large smoothed-edge shard. It lit up slowly, increasing in brightness until there was enough light in the oubliette to see around them. It looked no different than the oubliette she had fell in. There was no bench like the one Hoggle had used to make a door, but this didn’t worry Sarah in the least. The pendant around her neck was more than just an average decorated pendant. It was a gift of the labyrinth’s spirit, who controlled every aspect of the labyrinth and protected its inhabitants. Sarah met her the very night Jareth ultimately decided to make Sarah his queen.

“Do you know what this place is?” Sarah asked the girl while looking for any indication on the wall.

“No,” the girl sniffled.

“It’s called an oubliette,” Sarah informed her, turning to face her. “It’s a chamber meant for people to be forgotten about.”

The girl’s blaze-red hair was matted and messy from the slide down. Her freckles spotting her face, slightly prominent buck-teeth, and button nose reminded Sarah of Pippi Longstockings. Though an older thirteen year-old version.

“We’re going to die down here aren’t we? I don’t see any kind of vent for air.” Her accent was American, Sarah noted. Though she was unsure where in America the accent was from, she was sure it was not from the south.

“No, actually I was going to offer to help you out of the oubliette and take you on a shortcut I am familiar with.”

“A short cut leading where?”

“Smart girl,” Sarah thought quietly to herself. Aloud she said, “Out of the labyrinth.”

“Out of the Labyrinth, like towards the center?”

“No,” Sarah shook her head. “‘Out of the labyrinth’ as in out of the labyrinth.”

“So I’ll have to start all over again,” she cried, her shoulders slumped in defeat. She looked beseechingly up at Sarah, her brown eyes filling with tears. “Please, Miss. I want to get my brother back before he turns into a goblin.”

“Why did you wish him away, then?” Sarah questioned. “It’s the only reason he’s here to start with.”

“I just…” She seemed to be coming up with an answer.

“Be careful with what you say, child. You don’t want to lie to me,” Sarah said quietly.

“I was an only child until he came along. Then mom and dad stop paying attention to me,” the girl said finally. “I was jealous and angry and wishing him away made me feel better. I didn’t know-.” She broke off and burst into tears, covering her face shamefully.

“Alright, I’ll lead you out of here and take you on a shortcut to get you closer to the center, but only on one condition.” Sarah held out a finger to punctuate the oneness of her condition she spoke of in her offer. The little girl looked up, tears and snot running down her face. “Always remember your words have power to them. Do not ever say what you might regret.”

“Ok,” the girl nodded, wiping her face off.

Sarah turned around, touching her pendant lightly with the hand not holding the crystal shard, seeking the way out. A door opened for her.

“What’s your name?” Sarah asked the girl as she exited the door.

“Ashley,” the girl responded. “And my brother’s name is Tommy. Well it’s actually Thomas, but Tommy is his nickname.”

Sarah got a prickling feeling that something was staring at her, and she turned around slightly, lifting the crystal up. Ashley peered up at her questioningly, then looked at where she was looking at. There was nothing. Just a long, dark hallway of rock and cobweb. Sarah wondered briefly if the staring was from Jareth, who would have been watching her very closely throughout that exchange, or something else that lurked nearby. Jareth, she could handle. The possibility of it being something else was unnerving.

They continued walking in the direction Sarah felt she was being pulled to by her request of the labyrinth for a short cut closer to the center. Sarah recognized the hallway they entered, its brick walls and brick archways making it unmistakably the same type of place she had entered with Hoggle before when he led Sarah out of her oubliette. It wasn’t the same area, however, as Sarah did not see any of the rock faces that warned her to not go on.

Ashley and Sarah continued on the path the pendant was leading them, stepping over piles of dust and broken bricks, rounding a corner when the sight of a familiar figure made Sarah groan quietly.

A goblin with a pirate-looking hat sat on the ground, bandages covered his eyes and a beak-like mouth extended out, a blue cloak covered his shoulders as he sat on the ground. He tilted his head at the sound of Sarah and Ashley walking towards him.

“What brings you two this way?” The voice was old sounding, creaky and scratchy. Sarah knew this was Jareth. She wondered why he was bothering to appear this way before considering the idea that maybe he didn’t know Sarah remembered. But why wouldn’t he? The form seemed deliberate. So this must be a silent warning. Stepping closer to the begger, Sarah gently deposited her still glowing crystal shard into the black cup he held. The beggar looked in its direction and swirled it around, causing it to clank unevenly due to its shape.

“Do me a favor,” Sarah said to the beggar quietly. “And don’t mention this to anyone. I’m not sure why it came out in that shape, but I did try.”

The Jareth-beggar reached into the cup and pulled it out, examining it with his fingers. It’s glow had already started to fade. Sarah motioned for Ashley to follow her, and they walked away.

“Why’d you give that to him?” Ashley asked as if disgusted. Sarah gave her a questioning look. She explained more quietly, “where I come from we call them pan-handlers… They don’t really need the money because Mom says they get plenty from the government. They just use the money they get from panhandling for drugs and crap. One time, a rich guy pretended to be in a wheelchair for a couple months and hung outside the hospital. He earned a couple thousand dollars a month just so he’d have money and not have to report it for taxes. He got arrested for tax fraud eventually.”

“Ashley,” Sarah said slowly. “This is not the same world. Things work differently here.”

They reached an outcropping that had a ladder going very high up.

“Take this ladder to the top, and that should put you as close as I can take you,” Sarah said lightly. The girl began to climb it. “Oh, and Ashley? Next time you are face to face with the Goblin King, keep in mind he can be particularly cruel. Be careful with your words, next time. I may not be able to help you again if you fall into another oubliette.”

With that, Sarah turned around and returned to where the beggar was seated. He was peering under the bandages that covered his eyes at the crystal she had given to him.

“Why are you down here anyway?” she asked him.

“Why did you help her?” he deflected, still not observing the crystal carefully. His tone was not the masked one he had used a minute ago, but instead was very clearly Jareth’s scratchy baritone voice Sarah found so attractive. It was quite odd hearing it come from the goblin-form sitting on the ground.

“I couldn’t exactly leave her in there,” Sarah said simply, shrugging. “Besides, it’s not as if I took her very far. If anything I only put her back where she had been before she started following Madoc.”

“You’re not answering my question.” Jareth stood up, the goblin-form melting away into his kingly self. “Why did you help her?”

Sarah looked into his fierce and demanding blue and black eyes. His lips tightened into a thin line when she did not answer him right away.

“Her little brother reminds me of Toby,” Sarah said finally. “I miss him…”

His eyes softened at her answer. He took a deep breath and twirled the crystal shard in his hand a couple times over.

“You know, it’s not bad,” Jareth said as he looked at it. “It’s a different shape, sure, but it’s polished and clear.” He let go of it, and it dropped to the ground, shattering upon impact. He squatted down and picked up a piece of the shattered mess and clenched it in his gloved hand. It crumbled easily into dust. “It’s a bit fragile, but I can tell you’ve made a lot of progress.” He brushed off his hand then, standing up, Jareth took Sarah’s arm gently. They took a step and with that they were back in the throne room.

“There you are, Sarah.”

Madoc greeted Sarah with a bow, offering his hand out for hers. Hesitantly, she pressed her fingers into his palm which he clasped and kissed the top of her hand gently, before straightening up. Sarah felt her cheeks burn as she blushed.

“Your wedding is coming up in a matter of days, and I wanted to ask if you had any theme of decor in mind? I also wanted to see how far along your magic was coming?”

Two months ago, Jareth told her that the Erlking was wanting the wedding to take place in his castle. It was traditional for a royal marriage to take place in the court’s main castle, and a bit over-the-top, but Jareth said that faeries loved their traditions. It was a bit similar to a human marriage outside of religious based ones in that there was someone there to oversee the marriage and marry the couple officially, and guests came to join in festivities and enjoy the food. But the speeches were more carefree, and vows were not spoken, but performed with magic. And it was less a display of the girl being married off to a guy, and more a display of the couple marrying each other. A display of magic between the couple took quite a lot of practice and control, something Sarah had yet to master. The fact that the wedding was within a week alone was terrifying enough without Madoc having to remind her of it. For the past month or so, Sarah has had a recurring nightmare where during the wedding she had set Jareth’s hair ablaze, or some other ridiculous disaster. She couldn’t make a simple crystal, let alone manage to perform with someone else.

“A theme?” Sarah frowned then shook her head. “I”m not familiar with what would be appropriate and what would not. I might rely on Jareth’s expertise on that.”

Jareth shrugged his shoulders, throwing his hands up.

“If you want me to pick. I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable or stressed,” Jareth said softly. “You know my tastes in decoration are a bit specific.”

Sarah’s eyes went back over Jareth’s outfit and wondered if all the decorations were going to be leather, sparkles and tight pants. Sarah looked away slowly, imagining the theme being tight leather sparkly pants, and imagined Jareth in tight leather pants. She covered her face as she knew she must be going red at the thought.

“Sarah?” Madoc’s voice sounded concerned.

“Yes, yes, Jareth pick. I need to worry about that magic stuff,” she said muffled through her hands. She moved her hands to cover only her mouth, looking up at a concerned looking Erlking. “I’m making progress but I’m not sure I have enough finesse to make it look perfect.”

“Unless you are planning on exchanging fireballs,” Madoc mused, “I doubt you will need to worry about finesse. Titania and Oberon’s display during their wedding was tantamount to chaos. You have little to worry about.”

“Plus you’ll have me there.” Jareth brushed Sarah’s hair out of her face. She was about to retort with something sarcastic, but it got swallowed when she returned to her leather pants thought.

Distracting herself, she looked around for Lucy and Tommy. Both appeared to not be in the room at all. Probably a good thing, considering the Erlking’s distaste in humans. Then she looked behind her at the crystal orb. And her jaw dropped, slightly. Ashley made it to the center of the labyrinth, to the forest. Once out of the forest she would be less than a mile away from the Goblin City, and the castle.

“I should get to it then,” Madoc said nodding. “Jareth, once you’ve decided let me know what you’d like specifically. I’m personally going around to members of my courts to invite them, so I may not be able to respond right away.”

By the time he left, Ashley had made it to the city.

“You had to give her a shortcut,” Jareth growled at Sarah.

“Tight leather sparkly pants,” Sarah said quietly. That definitely caught him by surprise. He stared at her for a moment.

“What?” he asked finally, not believing that he had heard right.

“You heard me right,” Sarah grinned. “Tight leather sparkly pants. I was wondering what the decor theme was going to be if you picked it, and that’s what I thought of. Tight leather sparkly pants.”

Jareth seemed too bewildered for words, and just proceeded to stare at her, mouth slightly agape as if he wanted to respond. Then he slowly looked down at her outfit, then glanced back into her eyes, a grin flashed upon his features, his eyes glittering mischievously.

“Only if you wear them, love,” he said, leering at her. Sarah shook her head at him, rolling her eyes.

As Ashley walked through the bustling city of goblins, a bell tolled out the thirteenth hour.


	2. Nightmares

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do I even need to put a disclaimer up anymore? You all know who is who :3
> 
> Oh, heads up. There's some cussing and such.
> 
> Please enjoy.~

Sarah was dreaming. At least she thought she was. She was following the red-headed girl Ashley through the labyrinth, trying to help her reach Toby, Sarah’s baby brother. But Ashley was too late. Toby turned into a goblin and Sarah wept bitterly. Jareth appeared and was very angry with her. He turned into an owl and flew away from her. Darkness encased her in a familiar way, fear pinching in her cheeks as she knew what was coming. A familiar nightmare. Sarah tried to wake herself up as a horrible echoing laugh resounded in her dreamstate. As the laughing grew louder, Sarah could feel chains gripping her wrists and ankles, anchoring her to a chair. A figure draped in shadow, where the laughs always came from, stepped forward, her arm around Jareth. His arm around her. Jareth had left Sarah for this woman. Sarah pleaded with Jareth, in tears. He turned away from her, disgusted with her, and became a large owl-beast, clutching the shadowy woman to him and began to fly away. The woman’s echoing laughter filling the darkness.

  
  
  


“Jareth,” Sarah pleaded. “Please. Please don’t. Jareth! JARETH!!!”

“Sarah?! Sarah, what’s wrong?”

She had been flailing about, and damn near kicked Jareth off the massive bed. Jareth, grabbed Sarah by her upper arms and tried to hold her still while she thrashed, as if fighting off an invisible enemy while she sobbed hysterically. He shook her awake. Gasping for breath, she stared at him for a good minute, her tear stained eyes wide in terror.

“What happened?”

“Youwerethereandthenyou-,”

“Deep breaths, precious, slow down,” Jareth soothed, pulling her over to him tightly, then gently began petting her hair. He instructed her in his low, baritone voice for a second on breathing, slowing her racing heartbeat and mostly calmed her down. “Now, tell me what happened, love.”

“You were mad at me and you had left and then you were there and became this-.” It still felt so real to her. Even recounting it in summary was making her shake tremendously. Even spitting out the word seemed to terrify her. “- Creature!”

“You keep dreaming that I’ll turn into anything other than me?” Jareth said, pressing his lips against her forehead. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you are rather fond of my looks.”

Sarah didn’t laugh, but it did seem to stop her from crying at least. She pushed back slightly. Jareth resisted a little, looking reproachfully at her.

“Jareth, you’re naked.”

“I… beg your pardon?” Jareth said, raising his eyebrows in mock offense. “I  _ am  _ wearing pants.”

“Half-naked, then.” Sarah rolled her eyes.

“Mm yes, that I am,” Jareth mused, looking off somewhere and scratching the side of his jaw. “And have been all night, and every night for the past couple months. Why is it bothering you now?”

Sarah hesitated a moment, looking at his chest. He was not stocky and muscular, but he most certainly was toned. A bit on the thin side. Jareth seemed to pretend to be unaware she was staring at him.

“Because up until now you’d been keeping to your side of the bed,” Sarah said carefully.

“ _ My side of the bed, _ ” Jareth repeated, eyes widened in disbelief. “The  _ whole bed _ is my side of the bed!”

“You know what I meant, Jareth,” Sarah rolled away from him onto her back, covering her face in exasperation. He looked at her silently, sitting up onto his elbow to see her better. She lowered her hands in time to see a frown cross his features. “You’re pouting, again.”

He cocked an eyebrow at her, looking into her eyes in such a way that made Sarah’s heart melt.

“I would not want you to misunderstand or be uncomfortable,” Jareth said finally, his tone careful. “I do not have physical needs, like a human male. I  _ do,  _ however, need to comfort you when you are upset, precious.”

Sarah frowned at him.

“And yet you’ve said I drive you insane.”

“Let me clarify,” Jareth said, wincing. “I do want you. But I’m not enslaved to a craving for your flesh. There is no sexual drive or desire to procreate. I am enslaved to your heart… For many faerie kind, there is only the drive to be affectionate towards the other whom we love and cherish. So, yes Sarah, you drive me insane.”

Sarah shook her head. To her it sounded the same, just put in a different perspective. But she wasn’t going to argue.

“Point is, we aren’t married just yet, so keep your half-naked self to the side of the bed I’m not sleeping on,” Sarah muttered.

“As you wish, precious.”

Sarah moved over and turned her back to Jareth, tucking the blanket underneath her chin. But she could not sleep. A long moment of silence passed between the two, neither knowing if they wanted to even try to go back to sleep or not.

“I’m only fifteen, Jareth,” she whispered finally. “I am…” Scared? Not ready for this? What was it she wanted to say? Both or neither? One or the other? Sarah felt very confused.

“You no longer have an age, Sarah. Age is only measured in the mortal realm for those who have limited lifespans.”

“Well,  _ there _ I’m only fifteen.” Sarah peered back at Jareth, twisting onto her back, a frown on her face. He was looking at her with a guarded expression. “What?”

“You’d be twenty-five by now, Sarah.”

“What?!” If she wasn’t wide awake then, she definitely was by now. She sat up and stared down at the lounging Goblin King. “It’s only been four months!”

“Have you not paid any attention to anything I’ve said? Time moves differently here,” he said, impatiently. “A single day passes here, when a whole month passes there.” She felt her lips go numb as he pushed himself up to lean his back against the backboard. He twirled his fingers in thin air and produced a crystal orb on his fingertips, offering it to her. As Sarah reached for it, she noticed his long, pointed fingernails and briefly wondered how anyone could do anything with claw-like fingernails like that.

The orb showed her the state of her family. Her father looked to be in his fifties. At least, she thought it was her dad. It’s who she wanted to see and it’s who the crystal showed. Alone, fat, and plenty of empty cans littered the space around him, he was nearly unrecognizable. There was no sign of an eleven year old boy anywhere in the house. That’s how old Toby should be, right?

“Jareth?”

Her voice must have been more panicked than how she meant it to be, because with a jerk of the bed from the sudden movement, he was suddenly over her shoulder, looking into the crystal.

“I can’t find Toby,” Sarah whispered.

“He’s probably with your step mom, don’t worry too much about it, love,” he rolled back to laying down, gently. “More importantly, do you believe me now?”

“I never not believed you, Jareth,” Sarah said quietly. “I just… don’t know how to process it. That’s all.”

  
  
  


The next morning came far too quickly.

Something had the king’s temper quite short, and he was having little patience for the newest of the goblins and, though he’d loath to admit it, Sarah.

For the majority of that night, she had worried and worried over that damned dream. And then there was Lucy. Sarah could not seem to understand that faeries choose the form they want to appear as. Lucy was one of his examples that time had passed and she would be sixteen in the mortal world. Sarah seemed stuck on the idea Lucy was still physically six or seven now, despite him explaining she was actually fully grown as a faerie by now. He tried to explain  _ again _ to forgetful Sarah that faeries chose their form and can use glamor to appear in any sort of way they wish, but Sarah wasn’t having any of it.

As a matter of fact, she left the bedroom soon after dressing herself in her old clothes and making herself look like her fifteen-year-old human self to spite him, accusing Jareth of having a taste for young teenagers because they didn’t know any better.

“Tell me how you really feel,” Jareth had hissed under his breath as she left out the door, dawn breaking over the horizon.

Then there was the newest goblin. Previously he was the child known as Tommy who the red-headed girl wished away. The child was a reminder to Sarah of her baby brother, and she missed him. So much so, that she assisted the red-headed child farther along the labyrinth than Sarah had let on. But yet, she still got distracted in the Goblin City for too long, and lost the battle for her brother.

This seemed to have put Sarah in a mood as well.

Jareth kept an eye on Sarah as she had tea with her dwarf friend Hoggle, who seemed very much against her marriage to Jareth, Sir Didymus, and a freshly awakened Ludo, whom had hibernated as a rock troll tends to do on rare occasions as a statue.

He narrowed his eyes as Sarah vented to them about her issues, Jareth’s blood reaching closer and closer to a boiling point at every word.

“-I just wish I could go home.” Sarah was saying.

“Your highness!” Sir Didymus stood up, knocking over his own tea. Hoggle stepped back, still terrified of Jareth, clutching his chest.

Jareth barely cared that he had suddenly appeared without he, himself, immediately realizing it. Sarah glared defiantly up at him. It took all he had to calm the anger within him. He was in love with her, but  _ damn it _ she can really piss him off. But he could be cruel.

“You want to go home, is that it Sarah?” Jareth was losing his own grip on his temper the longer he stared into those defiant green eyes. He hardly registered the flash of fear that entered them as he stepped closer to her. “Hmm? Sick of having everything you could possibly want, Sarah? I give you the world and you dare throw it in my face? Go back then, you ungrateful-,” he cut himself off, mid snarl. With an angry wave of his hand, Sarah was gone. He seethed at her empty presence before whirling upon the other three in the room, each whom had backed away.

Jareth needed time alone to himself to calm down, he realized. He simply disappeared. He did not like losing his temper, and found it even more unpleasant to see fear stain Sarah’s eyes. But, as he calmed down, he realized just how heartbreaking it was to hear her wish for home, as if the Goblin Castle wasn’t it.

He sat on the window sill, an unpleasant feeling overcoming him as he tried to figure out went wrong. It felt strange, like his very chest on the inside was tearing apart. It wasn’t until he felt something tickle the sides of his cheeks that he realized he had tears streaming down them.

  
  
  


Sarah stared at the space Jareth had previously occupied. But now she stood facing boxes in what looked to be a storage room of sorts. The layout looked otherwise similar to her old room. She took a deep breath and headed downstairs. The old man Sarah had seen in the crystal was sitting there, deep in what looked to be his third beer when he saw her.

“Who… S-Sarah?” he asked.

“Hi Daddy,” she greeted nervously.

“How did you get in here?” her Dad asked, looking behind her at the door he had kept locked.

“Where’s Toby? And Kar-I mean Irene?”

“Irene left me to go be with some other fool,” he slurred.

“Dad, where’s Toby?” Sarah pressed, more urgently.

“Who the hell is Toby? The dog? I thought his name was Merlin…”

“No, Toby. My little brother. The son you had with Irene.” Sarah put her hands on her hips and tapped her foot impatiently as she spoke.

“We didn’t… Sarah what the hell are you talking about?”

Sarah shook her head in disbelief. He was too inebriated to get any information out of. She turned around and glanced at all the cans that littered the living room. Maybe Toby was with Karen.

“Dad, do you know where Irene might be? She might know where Toby is.” He began to mutter under his breath incoherently, and Sarah wondered if he even heard her at all. Considering it a lost cause, she shrugged. “Do you mind if I set up my old bedroom for a while?”

He waved his hand and continued to mutter. Sarah made her way up the stairs slowly, a frown upon her brow. It wasn’t normal. Something wasn’t right. But she busied herself with unpacking boxes upon boxes, going through her old things and setting her room back up the way she used to have it. Her bed was a bit dusty, but fresh sheets would be a temporary fix before she could get a new one. She worked well into the night, going downstairs on occasion to check on her father. Each time she did, there was five more beer cans. She had a couple boxes left by the end of it, when she pulled out that red little leatherbound book she had found so fascinating months ago. No, years.

The Labyrinth.

As she opened to the first page, she dropped it, staring at the space it should have been. Tears welled up in her eyes as she sank to the floor slowly. She really hadn’t had time until then to consider what just happened. She started to feel regret starting to set in, but she shook her head furiously.

“It’s better this way,” she told herself, angrily wiping her tears away.

“Sarah?” Sarah lifted her head as Hoggle appeared next to her. “Are you ok?”

“No, not really Hoggle,” she admitted. “But I’m glad you came around.”

“Of course, that’s what friends are for,” Hoggle said, patting her knee with a gnarled hand. They sat there for a bit, just sitting there, looking around silently at the room. After a long moment, Hoggle asked her, “so what are you going to do now?”

“I’m not sure,” Sarah admitted. “I need to find Toby, but I’m not even certain how to begin looking for him. He’d be about eleven by now.”

She stopped another pang of regret as she remembered Lucy back at the castle.

“My, my, my.”

Hoggle nearly fell off the bed. Sarah straightened considerably as Queen Titania appeared before them. She was a beautiful fae, high queen of the Seelie Court, wife to Oberon. Her long, raven-black hair spilled around her pointed fae ears, down and around her shoulders and past her waist. Her fair skin was pale like porcelain, her eyes a velvety purple. Adorning the crown of her head was a branch of leaves, her velvety black floor-length dress belted with a similar branch. 

Behind her stepped the deer legged and horned Oberon. His green wild, bushy hair reached mid back, yellow cat-like eyes without their typical mischievous glint. He looked quite strange without a grin upon his face and instead looked quite solemn. He wore a fur skin around his waist.

They were also Jareth’s mother and father respectively.

Oberon waved and made Hoggle disappear.

“Just for now. He can come back after we are done talking,” he explained when Sarah looked at where Hoggle was a moment before, shocked.

“Your highnesses,” Sarah greeted, feeling both glad and fearful at the same time. Titania could be rather angry and not show it. But her fears were laid to rest when they both smiled sadly at her.

“I heard what happened between you and Jareth,” she said quietly. “My son can be quite pig-headed at times. He gets that from his father.”

“I was just upset,” Sarah started to say. She stopped though, realizing what she was about to say. “And in that moment I realized I had forgotten the biggest, most important rule about faeries,” she thought to herself silently. “Be careful what you wish for… As if I hadn’t learned that lesson already.”

Titania seemed to have been waiting for her to continue talking. But Sarah was busy beating herself up to realize she had cut herself off mid-sentence.

“Should we call off the wedding?”

Sarah looked up, staring at Titania for a long moment, considering.

“I’m sure Jareth wants to.”

“Actually, he doesn’t,” Oberon interjected. “He was leaving it up to you.”

“So, he doesn’t care,” Sarah started to say. Titania shook her head, cutting her off.

“He’s leaving it up to you, dear, because he cares.”

“I just need time to think, that’s all.” Sarah looked down at her clasped hands in her lap. “I don’t want to call of the wedding.”

“Well, you know how to come back, darling,” Titania smiled. “Take as much time as you need. It’s less than a couple days in our world, but in this one you have a little under a couple months. We can postpone if we have to. Though I think Madoc might be a bit upset at that. He’s put a lot of work into it, you know? You might have thought Jareth was his son, not ours.”

And with that they left as soon as they came. Hoggle came back and visited for a short while before leaving Sarah for the night. Sarah picked up the book she had dropped on the floor earlier and opened to the last page.

_ Through dangers untold, and hardships unnumbered _ _   
_ _ I have fought my way to the Castle, beyond the Goblin City. _ _   
_ _ To take back the child you have stolen. _ _   
_ _ For my will is as strong as yours, and my kingdom is as great. _ _   
_ __ You have no power over me.

Sarah sat at her vanity, looking into the mirror.

How would she even have looked at twenty-five? She couldn’t even imagine it. She looked downcast in her reflection and briefly wondered what Jareth would have said to her. She felt a pang of pain as she considered that he called her “precious” and wondered for a hurtful moment if he’d ever call her that again. She looked at the last pages of the book, staring at the words as if they would spring to life and take her back in time.

“I just need time, Jareth,” she whispered. “That’s all I wanted to start with. Everything felt so rushed and I… I should already be twenty-five here, and I never really got much of a chance to live it. Between everything, I wasn’t trying to be ungrateful for everything you’ve done for me. But without time to really think about things. I mean my life changed so much in the span of what to me felt like a couple months. How on earth could I explain that to you, who has never felt what it was like to be human.”

She wrapped her head in her arms and began to cry. As she said the words out loud it made her realize just how horrible she was.

“You weren’t the one being cruel,” she muttered bitterly through her sobs. “This whole time it’s been me. I don’t deserve you. I don’t deserve to be a queen of anything. I hurt the only person who cared about me and did nice things for me for what reason? What purpose? I hope you aren’t watching me be pathetic… Then again, maybe you’ll realize just how horrible I am and give up on me… I don’t want you to give up on me.”

  
  
  


As a matter of fact, Jareth had been watching. He was still angry with her, but from the time his mother promptly visited him and persuaded him to reconsider until presently he had been watching and listening to everything. He waved the crystal away. He couldn’t stand her degrading herself. But it was too soon.

“You want time to think, then take the time to think,” he muttered to himself. “You know how to come h….” he almost said “home,” but it only brought more painful questions. He quietly corrected himself, “to come back.”

He decided he needed time to think as well. And it would buy him the most time if he spent it in the mortal realm as well. He could keep a close eye on Sarah that way, too. Maybe this could turn out to be a good thing after all.


	3. Starting Over From the Beginning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *rubs hands together wickedly* I had fun with this chapter. Though I should have been sleeping... Oops! No regrets!

It had been a few days since Sarah returned to the mortal realm. She had no luck in finding Irene at all, and was at an absolute loss how to find Toby without Jareth to help. Her dad wasn’t any help at all, and she pitied what he had become.

She had taken a break from cleaning up after her father to go read in the park. She brought that red leather bound book with her, hoping it had some secret answer to all of her problems. It was certainly a catalyst to Sarah going to that realm to start with. She sighed, looking at the stone bench. For her it was not long ago that she had stood there, fifteen, play-acting the Labyrinth book in front of Merlin and Jareth, who was in owl form unbeknownst to her. Not long before she had run home an hour late, getting yelled at by Irene. Having to watch Toby who she wished away to the Goblin King. This was really where everything started. Where she met him first as an owl when she was a kid the day her mom left to be with that actor.

Sarah sat on the stone bench, wondering how different her life would have been had her mother never left. Toby would have never been born, so there would have been no wishing the child away. Sarah wouldn’t have eaten the peach. She wouldn’t have ever met Jareth at all, even his owl form.

Lost in her thoughts, Sarah never saw a man come around the corner and stare in bewilderment. Nor did she notice the man approach. She didn’t even notice him until he was in the process of sitting down next to her. Slightly uncomfortable, she avoiding looking at him.

“You like to read, I see? Do you come here often?” the man asked curiously.

Sarah looked at her book for a moment, almost on the verge of refusing to answer, but something deep inside her really wanted to talk to more than just her alcoholic mess of a father. She took a deep breath. What was the harm in making a new friend?

“I haven’t been here in a long time,” Sarah responded, looking up at him. “It brings back a lot of memories.”

“The same could be said for me, as well,” he responded, smiling. Sarah found herself really looking at the man. He was attractive. He had icy-blue eyes, short blond hair, prominent cheek bones, a sharp nose and angled, thin eyebrows. He wore a black leather jacket and a pair of jeans, making him look like one of those greaser boys from high school.

“You read books?” Sarah questioned, raising her eyebrows at him.

“I know, I don’t look like the type who enjoys it,” he laughed. “But I do. Especially fantasy novels.”

“You said you’ve been here before?”

“Once upon a time.” He looked distantly out as if recalling some bittersweet memories. He breathed in and let out a sigh. “I don’t know, there’s something relaxing about it, even if it does bring up old memories.”

Transfixed, Sarah found herself absolutely staring at the man, and found herself feeling strange. She shook her head to clear it at looked away. She couldn’t have those thoughts, now. She was engaged.

“I don’t mean to sound too forward, but may I ask what a girl like you is doing looking so sad?” he asked.

“I’ve just been through a lot,” Sarah said, looking down at the grass.

“It’s fine if you don’t want to talk about it,” the man said gently. “But if you need someone to talk to, I don’t mind at all. Or if you want me to scram, I can do that too.”

“No-no! You’re fine, I just hadn’t really had much time to think, that’s all. I don’t know how I feel. Kind of feel lost, actually, but beyond that? I don’t know.” She looked back at him, worried. “You must think I’m a bit dramatic.”

“Not at all,” he shook his head, smiling. He had that attractive bad boy smile, and yet he spoke like a very well educated man. “Take your time to think. We all need time to take a step back, you know?”

“Yea…” She nodded. “Well first there’s this guy…”

“Uh oh.”

“He’s not bad. I mean, I guess he isn’t.” She shrugged.

He tilted his head at her, cocking one eyebrow.

“What?”

“You wouldn’t be sitting here, feeling upset if he wasn’t bad.”

“I mean, it just felt… rushed, I guess. I was supposed to marry him in a couple days and I panicked… And I feel awful, but-!”

“Hey, it’s alright,” he raised his hand in a calming gesture. “Marriage can freak people out. It’s a big commitment. You don’t look like you’re old enough to settle down.”

“I’m… twenty five.”

“What seriously?” He looked shocked. “You look like you’re barely twenty.” Sarah smiled, shaking her head. “Ok so, what happened then?”

“I don’t know, I just… kinda left. Came home and everything was different. Found dad was a drunk now…” Sarah felt like she could tell this man everything. He was so easy to talk to. “What about you? What’s your story?”

“Eh,” he shrugged a shoulder. “Just decided to go down memory lane. A girl broke my heart so I guess this is my way of fixing it.”

“Two peas in a pod,” Sarah found herself thinking silently.

“My name’s Leo,” he said offering out his hand.

“Sarah,” she grasped his, still feeling a little confused with these rushing emotions filling in her chest.

“Sarah, it’s as if I’ve already met you,” he said genuinely. “Isn’t that strange?”

Leo and Sarah talked for hours. It seemed like minutes for Sarah, but she found the man attractive, funny, even witty. They talked about books they’ve read, sharing stories with each other. Well into the evening, as it grew dark, Leo started telling her ghost stories he had memorized by heart. He was great at telling them, Sarah found. They did this until they were hungry, then he offered to drive her to a drive through and pay for dinner. When they went they talked until they ate their fill. And then sitting in the car outside of her house they talked some more.

And before Sarah realized it, dawn was breaking over the horizon.

“I don’t believe it,” she stared at the light breaking to the east. “Have we really been talking that long?”

“You should get some sleep,” he said gently. “I’ll meet you later today if you’d like and you can finish telling me about Jack Sawyer and the Talismen?”

“I’d like that,” Sarah smiled. A moment passed where neither moved or said anything. Sarah didn’t understand why she did it, but she leaned in and kissed him. He raised a hand to the side of her face gently and they shared a small tender moment before Sarah broke away, coming to her senses. She covered her mouth, apologizing over and over again, before she ran out and left Leo looking bewildered and confused.

He turned his car on and drove off a moment later. Sarah watched him go until he was out of sight from her bedroom window, hoping desperately that Jareth paid no attention to that. Because if he did, there was a huge chance he was going to hurt him.

She couldn’t sleep, she was so worried about if he’d have gotten hurt or not. When he finally came to the park, looking unharmed she was delighted. Leo wanted to take her to a drive in theater he knew about, but it was a bit of a drive. But as she leaned against his arm as he drove, finally able to relax and comfortable around his leather and cologne scent, sleep forcefully overcame her.

When she woke up, she found she was in her own bed. She sat up and wept bitter tears for missing the date entirely. After she was done, she looked on her nightstand where her little red book was sitting (she didn’t remember setting it there) and atop it was a small square piece of paper. Sarah turned her light on and squinted at the yellow note. In rather fluid, curvy handwriting was a phone  number and a small note beneath it:

 

> _Meet me at the library at 10am_  
>  _\- Leo_

“Silly fool,” Sarah said to herself. “You even find his handwriting attractive… You should be ashamed of yourself.”

 

 

A little bit early, Sarah showed up at the library. It was a rather large library for such a small town with a round welcome desk that also served as the check in/out area at the front. Shelves and shelves of books behind it filled with many books and four computers set up for searching the web. There was a kid on one of them using it to play what looked like a puzzle game. It looked like a point and click with some sort of cartoonish ghost Sarah had never seen before. She found herself staring at the graphics. It seemed realistic to her, and it shocked her. The last game that freshly came out when before the whole Labyrinth stuff happened was a space sort of game where you had to type in what you wanted the character to do. Sarah had thought it looked realistic then and very colorful. The more she stared at it, the less she remembered of how the graphics looked for the space game, and the more she was convinced it looked the same.

“Fascinated by a kid’s game?” Sarah turned to find Leo looking at her oddly, one of his perfectly angled eyebrows raised.

“Frick off,” the kid playing the game snapped, turning to look at him. Leo looked around before he stuck two fingers in the air at the kid, blowing raspberries at him before putting an arm around Sarah’s shoulder and steering her away.

“That was childish,” Sarah muttered, frowning. The responding smirk/half-grin reminded her of Jareth, so much so that she felt another shock of shame. Certainly Jareth had likely noticed by now that she had been spending time with Leo the past two days. Leo led her to a table behind some of the shelves before he sat down.

“Sarah,” he began, fiddling with an object beneath the table. “I needed to talk to you very seriously about where this is going.”

“Where what is going?” Sarah felt a mixed feeling of excitement and dread wash over her in an equally pleasant and unpleasant way.

“Us,” he said gently. When he didn’t elaborate, Sarah swallowed.

“Leo…” Sarah had to take a very deep breath. She was not going to like what she had to say. She dropped her head, looking down in shame. “I’m sorry, but we can’t. It’s not that I don’t appreciate anything you’ve done but… I feel really guilty because I find you attractive when I’m still technically betrothed to-.”

“To Jareth?”

“Yes… wait...” Sarah looked up slowly. She never told Leo his name. “I don’t remember telling you his-.”

Leo lifted the object he had been fiddling with in his hand onto the table and sat it between them, heaving a heavy sounding sigh, and leaned back, resting his arm on the back of the other chair. Sarah stared at the object he had placed between them, numb shock completely cutting her off mid-sentence. She couldn’t think, she couldn’t talk, and worst of all, she couldn’t move.

It was a crystal orb. Leo wasn’t Leo. Leo was Jareth. Sarah wanted to run. She wanted to get up and run, but she couldn’t move. She was embarrassed, ashamed and worst of all, Jareth’s expression was calm. He wasn’t yelling at her, or punishing her. He didn’t even seem angry at all. Somehow that made Sarah feel worse.

“Sarah,” he said quietly. “Before anything else, I want to apologize to you.”

Sarah shook her head.

“Please, let me talk. You can be mad at me, just please let me explain,” he pleaded. He leaned forward and clasped his hands in front of him, resting his elbows on the table. She opened her mouth to say something, but she had no idea what to say. She just sighed and shut her mouth, looking off to the side. Jareth seemed to hesitate, contemplating as he chose his words carefully before continuing. “I’ve been childish and careless. Selfish. And vain. I didn’t think about how it was affecting you, and in the end I never meant to hurt you. But I did. I pushed you too far in such a short period of time, thinking I couldn’t do any wrong because, after all, we were meant for each other, things would just simply work. I was wrong, and I recognize that now.”

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, rubbing his eyes with both of his hands before clasping them together in front of his lips. Sarah slowly looked him in his eye, her heart catching as she saw evidence of tears.

“I wanted us to start over. From scratch. I wanted it be more natural but, again, I made a big mistake,” he continued, his voice starting to shake. He seemed to recognize that and took a steadying deep breath. “I only ended up making things worse. And… I’m sorry.”

At that his voice broke and he covered his face in his hands, his shoulders shaking. The numb feeling slowly disappeared and was replaced with confusion. She had no idea how to handle this at all. Should she be angry? Part of her wanted to be, but she just couldn’t bring herself to feel that way. She reached out and pulled his hands from his face. It was red, tear stained, and he was sniffling. Sarah had never seen him this vulnerable, and she realized in that moment that she could easily shatter him at this state if she wasn’t careful. Even if part of her wanted to be angry, the other part wanted to comfort him.

“I’ve never really had a relationship before you, Jareth,” she said carefully. “I’ve only really lived in my books and stories, so beyond them I’m new at this kind of thing. I can’t even say for sure that I really know myself very well, and that’s no good. But, if I’m going to be honest, I think you had the right idea, you just executed it poorly, is all. Let’s continue this thing we’ve been doing. It feels nice. I only ever known one thing about you until now. I never knew you liked stories, for example. Or that you were so good at telling them. I mean, I didn’t even think you were the same person, Jareth, if that tells you anything. Just… Give us a chance to really get to know one another. Let me see you for you, and you see me for me.”

That felt like the right thing to say. It was how her heart felt. He excused himself for a moment, promising to be right back. When he returned he sat back down in front of her, his face clear and back to it’s normal color.

“I’m a little shocked you didn’t recognize me to start with, honestly.” He tilted his head at her. “I didn’t change much about my appearance. Just my hair.”

“Just your hair? What about the general shape of your eyes and your one black colored eye-.”

“My what?” He looked confused.

“You had a black colored eye.” Sarah looked at him strangely. After a moment he laughed.

“They are both blue, Sarah. My pupil just doesn’t change dilation in one eye,” he explained. “Not while I’m in my fae form. I used to call it my owl eye.”

“That’s really interesting, actually,” Sarah muttered. “I wish I’d asked before.”

“So that’s one interesting thing about me, I guess.” He shrugged. “What about you?”

Sarah had to think about that one. She was at a disadvantage when it came to interesting things. She’d lived far less time than he had, and, in some sense, far less interesting. When she expressed this, however, Jareth only insisted that she was more interesting than she gave herself credit for.

“Anything interesting about me, I’m sure you already know about,” she said shrugging.

“Well, then tell me about stuff you used to imagine.”

“Well... “ She hesitated. “I used to imagine my mother made it to be a big actress, and later she’d come and rescue me. Other times I was a princess fighting dragons or stuff like that.”

“Never the damsel in distress?”

“No, the damsel in distress was always the prince I was saving, or a helpless knight who fell victim to whatever I was fighting.” Sarah fidgeted, looking away.

“You are a strong, imaginative, independent woman, Sarah. I’d say that is very interesting.”

She looked up to see him smiling kindly at her and briefly wondered if he was pulling her leg. She decided he was being genuine, ultimately, and decided to ask him basics.

“What is your favorite color?” Sarah asked him, sheepishly wondering if he would find the question childish. But he didn’t.

“Violet. Very specifically dark violet blue. What about you?”

“I am torn between three. Red, purple and blue. Just depends on my mood.”

“Red, the color of passion, rage, vibrance, and action. Very assertive. Blue is the color of wisdom, intelligence, stability, imagination, and freedom. Purple is a mix of the two, with the addition of nobility, mystery, and ambition.” Jareth stated, rolling the crystal orb he had placed on the table between his two hands. Sarah stared at him with new-found admiration.

“What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow,” she asked suddenly.

“What do you mean?” He held the crystal still and stared up at her. “An African or European swallow?”

And so they spent the day together at the library. For a while they made a game out of just throwing references at one another to see if the other got it, and if they didn’t they would win a point. Jareth came to realize that Sarah was pretty knowledgeable in most fantasy books and movies, but he found her weak point quickly. She didn’t have as much time as he had had to read or watch things when he would visit the mortal realm. The game instead turned into resolutions to watch this or that together. They left the library and spent the remainder of the day talking in the park. Jareth produced a meal that the goblins had apparently put together fresh in the Fae realm, reminding Sarah she needed to eat fae food, not mortal food. He also explained he had quietly switched the food out that they had the other night with fae food so Sarah wouldn’t be hungry.

“I’m sorry for running out on you, Jareth,” she said quietly to her plate of chicken. He stopped mid-bite to look at her. “I felt trapped and forced into making a decision. You said you were being childish and selfish, but you weren’t the only one.”

“I’ll forgive you if you promise to forgive me,” he said. “Let’s put it behind us and focus on getting to know each other.”

“I promise.”

They ate in contemplative silence for a bit before Sarah was struck with a thought.

“You know. That’s the first time I’ve ever seen you actually really cry like that.”

“You’re the only one besides my mother who has seen me like that,” he admitted, seriously. “I don’t like showing weakness.”

“What’s wrong with being emotional?”

“If you wear your heart on your sleeve, some people will use that against you. Manipulate it and find your weaknesses.”

“So…” she took a bite of the mashed potatoes. “... Obviously that will stay between us, but… Does this mean you’ll ‘wear your heart on your sleeve,’ as you said, for me?”

“That’s a silly question to ask, Sarah.”

“Is it?” Sarah looked at him in the eye, leaning against his shoulder. He looked at her eyes, one then the other, then back again. Sarah noticed him look down at her lips then back to her eyes again just before he leaned in to kiss her. She felt her heart skip a beat as her breath caught in her chest.

“Yes, it is. Of course that means I’ll be wearing my heart on my sleeve for you. You already knew that... you only wanted me to say that out loud.”

Sarah grinned at him, which earned a grin from him in response, before he leaned in again to kiss her. He leaned his head back to look up at the sky before laying down next to her, his hands interlaced behind his head. Sarah turned slightly, leaning against the hand that was closest to him and placed her other hand against his knee. He looked at her for a moment before looking back up at the sky.

“You know, we should make a point to do this more often,” he muttered. “It’s very relaxing.”

Something about his form, his jeans, his t-shirt, the jacket, everything just seemed to make him look amazing. And before Sarah was even aware, she started leaning towards him, running her hand up his leg to his side away from her, leaning down, pressing her lips to his. She felt one hand hold her cheek as he met her lips tenderly. This time, there was no hunger. Only a very sweet, pleasant caress.

He slipped his thumb between their lips and broke the kiss very gently.

“You are teasing me, precious,” he purred. “That’s not very nice of you.”

“You aren’t the only one who can be cruel.” She winked at him as he scowled at her before she sat back up, grinning to herself. It wasn’t as if that were planned, but the impulse to be mischievous had her thinking to herself that maybe she really had made the right decision in becoming a faerie, rather than not. For the first time, she actually considered the event of her eating the peach favorable.

 

 

Unknown to the both of them, they were being watched closely by a woman in the shadows of the line of trees. She glared at them hatefully, disgusted by their public display. She couldn’t hear their conversation but she didn’t need to. Nor want to. She bared her sharp, elongated fangs, her crimson eyes flaring in rage. They will get what they deserved soon. She needed more time. More time and more patience. But she was unsure if she could hold out much longer. Especially after witnessing _that_. Hissing, she disappeared.

“Soon,’ she thought.


	4. Making a Move

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait and for such a short Chapter. I had a lot more planned and I kept rewriting and rewriting but in the end I decided to nix the fluff and carry on. The pacing of it just was feeling off. I'm sorry for the wait guys! This story is still chugging along strong, and I'm really still very excited to keep it going. I even drew a little reference for Jareth out of inspiration. But I'll share it here later because it contains spoilers :x
> 
> Please Enjoy. ~

_ “When you fall in love, it is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake, and then it subsides. And when it subsides, you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots are to become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the desire to mate every second of the day. It is not lying awake at night imagining that he is kissing every part of your body. No … don’t blush. I am telling you some truths. For that is just being in love; which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over, when being in love has burned away. Doesn’t sound very exciting, does it? But it is!” _ _   
_ _   
_ __ Captain Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis de Bernières

  
  


It had been about a couple weeks or so since Sarah returned to the mortal realm.

It felt really strange. Sarah was getting so used to the way he looked and acted here that she often had to take a moment to remember he was the same Jareth who was the Goblin King. For whatever reason, she had started to become convinced they were two different people.

Sure. There were moments when he’d start fiddling with a random crystal orb he’d make out of absolutely nothing, and when he’d get that familiar mischievous grin across his face, there’d be no doubt in her mind. But it would be strange, normal moments where Sarah would take a step back and have to force herself to remember he was the one in the same. Like when he was on the computer at the library, reading a book, or just simply driving them from place to place. It felt so odd that he seemed about as human as one would think, and yet, Sarah knew he wasn’t.

A couple nights ago, he had to leave early, but had instructed Sir Didymus to keep an eye on her for a while. Jareth evidently told Sir Didymus why, but Sir Didymus outright refused to speak to Sarah on the matter, sworn into secrecy for whatever the reason.

It was enough to make Sarah suspicious over the matter. She did try to get him to tell her the truth, but all he insisted was that it was for her safety that she didn’t know. Of all the ridiculous notions. But there was nothing she could do about it but wait.

Tonight, Jareth finally came to visit her but seemed particularly off. Although, as if in response to her worries, he was in his normal fae form. Long, pale, wild feathery hair and all.

“Jareth?” Sarah opened her door wider. He glanced over her shoulder to her sleeping father in the living room and made a face of disgust at him. “Where have you been? What’s going on?” Sarah’s voice had raised slightly, as she crossed her arms. Jareth pressed a gloved finger to his lips in alarmed response before glancing over his shoulder behind him then up towards the stairs. Sarah stared at him in confusion. He gestured her to follow him, turning to walk away. “Wait, let me go get Sir Didymu- Hey!”

Jareth had twisted around and had her wrist caught in a vice grip, his eyes and nostrils flared in anger. He shushed her again, casting a quick glance behind her before tugging her with him.

“Jareth, this isn’t funny.”

He didn’t respond. Only yanked her along in the darkness, twisting his head back and forth, and stopping to peak around corners as though he were trying to avoid someone. His caution raised a level of fear and suspicion in Sarah, making her heart race. As he yanked her along, he was not gentle at all, as he normally was, and his grip around her wrist was bordering painful.

She yanked her wrist away, twisting out of his grip and clamped her arms at her sides angrily as he turned to face her. Her wrist throbbed where he had grabbed her, and she had no doubt it was bruised.

“Tell me what’s going on,” she demanded. He glared at her for a long moment, and Sarah saw something that almost looked like hatred pass in his eyes. But surely she was just seeing things?

Wordlessly, he grabbed her upper arm and pulled her roughly towards him and covered her mouth to muffle the surprised yelp that escaped her. He looked around him quickly. Seeing no one on the dark and deserted alleyway between the houses, he looked down at Sarah.

Sarah’s eyes widened. Both of his eyes were blue. And so close to him now, she could smell him. Jareth normally smelled like cinnamon, night air, and magic, but the smell that came from him now was like rotting fruit. Come to think of it, there was nothing glittery about him tonight.

“Wait… You’re not Jareth.”

He removed his hand and clenched it into a fist.

For a very brief moment, Sarah thought he was going to punch her, and her jaw fell open in shock. But he did not. Instead, he threw his fist forward as though throwing something at her face, causing her to flinch and gasp in automatic response. He had thrown a powder at her that smelled of dried leaves and fungus. And it made Sarah’s head swim instantly until she lost her balance and blacked out.

Sir Didymus, who had finally caught up to them, having had noticed both leave nearly as soon as she had exited the house, but having little feet, only witnessed the man pick up an unconscious Sarah. He grinned wickedly at Sir Didymus before twirling on the spot and stepping through the portal to Tír na nÓg, closing it before Sir Didymus could get to it. The creature growled angrily before running back to Sarah’s house as fast as his little legs could carry him.

 

\-----------------------------

 

Jareth stared at the dog-like goblin in disbelief. They were in the throne room. Seconds before he had opened the way for Sir Didymus to come back through, as he could barely hear him over the barking and yipping that he tended to do in his excitement. He seemed very out of breath. But Jareth could have sworn he heard the words “Sarah” and “kidnapped” in the same sentence. All of the throne room was deathly silent, even Lucy, who had been playing with one of the goblins had stopped to stare.

“What did you just say?” Jareth asked.

“A man who looked a lot like you kidnapped lady Sarah” Sir Didymus howled. “We must go and save her!”

“Damn it!” Jareth yelled, chucking the orb from his hand in fury. Nearly everyone in the room retreated in instinctive terror as the crystal shattered against the wall. Some fell to their knees. “Didn’t I tell her not to judge a fae based on their looks?!”

He slammed his fist down onto the arm of his throne in a fit of temper as he sat down. He covered his face with his hands, propping his elbows against his knees. His shoulders trembled as sobs threatened to overtake him. But Jareth could not appear broken. Not in front of anyone. Not here and not now. He had to find Sarah. He needed to keep his head clear to find her. He felt numb.

He moved his gloves hands from his eyes to cover his mouth, resting his chin on his thumbs. There was no doubt in his mind. Maeve was behind this. His uncle, Madoc, had approached him with a concern that Maeve had been visiting the mortal realm quite often, and he had caught her spying on Sarah not that long ago. Jareth had known she was up to something and had sent Sir Didymus to keep an eye on Sarah while he tried to figure it out. It hadn’t even been an hour for him and Sarah ends up missing.

He had already tried to find where Maeve was through his crystals, but there was nothing. She was already prepared for scrying, and had blocked all magical access. There was no way to find her.

As the throne room darkened from the setting sun, the only light that could be seen in the room were the pair of angry scarlet eyes from the king. Nobody in the throne room dared to move, or draw breath.

Slowly he stood up, and with a wave of his hand, the braziers on the walls ignited.

He looked out the window at the setting sun. It felt like so long ago. Weeks had gone by in the mortal realm, and hardly a single day had passed here. Only a couple days ago, they had sat on the bed together. She had been having nightmares for a while then. He had shown her-.

His eyes widened slightly, and his whole body stilled.

She couldn’t find Toby.

Could it be? Was it possible?

With a shaky hand, he summoned a new crystal and willed it to find Toby Williams.

The crystal’s clear body swelled with a dark cloud then cleared easily, showing Jareth a disturbing scene. Sir Didymus was right. The resemblance was uncanny. Nearly every detail was exactly physically him except his eyes. But what disturbed Jareth most was he was already fully grown. He should have been ten in the mortal realm. But here he was, a fully grown faerie. Jareth’s heart nearly stopped as Toby dumped Sarah onto a table. Chains snaked around her middle, arms, and legs, strapping her down. Maeve stepped towards her from the shadows.

Jareth had already seen enough. He knew exactly where they were now. The backdoor access was a slip up on her end, it seemed, and Maeve would learn to regret it. Inwardly, silently, Jareth promised to finish her off, like he should have done when she had nearly choked one of his goblins to death. Like he should have done when she threatened him with death over him sending her to the bog over it. Like he should have done when she had taken advantage of his lack of powers during the hearing. Like he should have done ages ago when she first stepped foot in his kingdom.

“Lucy, you are in charge while I’m gone,” Jareth snarled, before disappearing.

Lucy blinked at where he had been before. She frowned slightly before looking around at the nervous and tearful goblins.

“Do you think Lady Sarah will be ok?” Sir Didymus asked no one in particular.

“She’s a nice queen lady,” one goblin said woefully.

“I’m scared,” said another.

“We have to do something,” someone else said. Then the whole room erupted into chaos of shouting, crying and panicked goblins. Lucy blanched. Not even a minute into her temporary rule, and everything had already gone south? She climbed onto Jareth’s throne.

“HEY!” Lucy yelled. Being a lycan, she had quite a loud voice which caused the castle to rumble slightly. All of the room’s inhabitants quieted down instantly and stared at Lucy. She smiled kindly to them. “Listen. The king’s off to help her, right? And he’s quite capable, yes?”

The goblins all nodded.

“You don’t doubt his power, do you?”

A few shook their heads so hard that their helmets fell to the ground with a clatter.

“Well, so how about we stop worrying and relax,” Lucy said brightly. “Let’s play a game of hide and seek. Salt, you’re it!”


	5. The Midnight Court

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads up. Some mild level of gore.

Life has never been fair. No one understands and no one cares to. A truth the youngest child born of vampire parents would grow to quickly understand.

Shadow faeries of the Midnight Courts were very easily misunderstood and stereotyped as evil. While the Unseelie Courts remained impartial, the Seelie Courts were against them entirely. It didn’t help that the Seelie Faeries all seemed to adore humans. Shadow Faeries _hated_ them. All they did was destroy everything they touched. Many faeries and faerie children had died thanks to humankind. And the Midnight Court And Seelie Court often fought over it. It wasn’t until a few centuries ago that they stopped the war between them. But things were all but peaceful.

The little faerie vampire child was named Maeve. She was not the prettiest of her siblings, nor the most powerful, and all of her older sisters and brothers would remind her of that. Her father was a noble in the Midnight Court and was rarely home, and her mother did not care enough to step in for her youngest. Convinced nothing good would come of her, she constantly told Maeve she would never amount to anything.

Except one day, in an attempt to gain favor of the Unseelie Courts, her father had offered High King Madoc his prettiest daughter. Madoc refused. Year by year, Maeve’s father would try again and again, offering each of his daughters in turn. Until finally it was Maeve’s turn.

Madoc again, refused, but impatiently referred him to his Nephew, Jareth, a single fae king of the Winter Court, and son of the leader, High Queen Titania of the Seelie Court. Seeing an advantageous step, Maeve’s father asked Jareth to consider Maeve’s hand in marriage.

Madoc on the other hand, felt sorry for Maeve. They had quite a long conversation about things, and he felt that if nothing else, he could at least offer her a position as Queen of the Fall Court. Maeve was very proud of this, but when she met Jareth, everything fell apart.

The very moment she and her escort had entered the kingdom, she was forced to walk that stupid labyrinth. She did try to get around it, but every attempt was magically blocked.

Compared to her, Jareth was a couple centuries older, but at least he was much younger than Madoc. His kingdom was a little warmer as well. There was sunlight, but it was not as strong, and the air was still comfortably cool. It would have been alright, except it was filled with disgusting creatures. Maeve has trouble disguising her disgust with the goblins. The trolls, the dwarfs, the little goblins, even the labyrinth itself was ugly. Maeve hated it all. Even Jareth, who seemed to care little for anything but himself. He seemed to find it funny that the labyrinth forced her to solve it. Which was ridiculous to think a labyrinth had a mind of its own. Who did he think he was?

He was so vain, she was surprised he could see anything he was so stuck up his own ass. And then there were the creepy little goblins in the throne room that used to be human children. Filthy, disgusting, polluting human spawn! They weren’t even fit to have a goblin form, as ugly as goblins are. This was who she was going to marry? This was to be her kingdom?

It was as if she had been given hope only for it to be spat and stepped on before her. She sat in the throne room that afternoon, having been ditched by Jareth to follow some human brat of a child’s parent that was running the labyrinth.

That’s when one of them touched her, Maeve went ballistic. She’s had enough of everything life had so far thrown at her, and she wasn’t going to take it lying down any longer. She picked the disgusting goblin up by the throat. That’s when Jareth appeared out of nowhere.

The next thing Maeve knew she was being suspended by her neck over that disgusting bog that smelled of rotting literal shit. Jareth explained to her, with that evil smile of his, that the bog was quite nasty and left a lasting smell if you even got one drop on you. Then, unceremoniously, threw Maeve headfirst into the deeper part of the bog. Which, by the way, was no deeper than a pond. But it had soaked her completely. Hanging off of her, as she stood up, clawing her way out of the bubbling warm swampy filth. Jareth laughed at her as she spat some that had gotten in her mouth.

Maeve cursed the very day he was born. And sure, she threatened him.

During the hearing, Jareth painted falsehoods. He lied deliberately, saying that Maeve had treated his subjects poorly the moment she arrived, that she had been tossed into that dreadful bog by goblins who threatened to overthrow his rule if he attempted to intervene. And what was worse, the goblins who he said did it even lied for him and supported those claims.

Madoc, thankfully, did not remove her from her position, wanting to give her another chance. But she had to amend her statement and admit that she had lied about Jareth purposefully dumping her into the bog himself.

Maybe half a century later, Jareth was hooking up with some human girl who found herself lucky to become a fae after stupidly eating fruit from Tír na nÓg. Nearly a couple days later, he was announcing she was to be his queen.

That filthy human-born child?? She was to be queen over Maeve?! It was truly a salt-in-the-wound kind of smack in the face. During the hearing over that, Maeve got to see the girl. She wasn’t even that pretty! How dare that scumbag of a goblin king. Maeve was fully convinced he was doing it to spite her, just to prove how low he thought of her.

And when he physically attacked Maeve, everyone saw. Nobody came to her defense. No one tried to help her. Everyone treated it as a show and nothing more.

Publically humiliated, Maeve swore revenge.

And oh, yes, she would have it. But how? How could she hit home so well it would make Jareth’s pompous ass squirm?

Well, it was plenty obvious that if anything happened to that girl Sarah it would cause him great distress. And it took very little to find a way to get to Sarah.

Toby. A small, barely one year old little boy. Sarah’s half brother. Maeve snatched the child and made him into a faerie and raised him to be her loyal servant for a couple months. Faeries don’t take very long to physically mature, after all. But, part of it was sped along by Maeve’s own magic. As a vampire, she was easily able to force Toby to become a vampire. He even retained his blond hair and blue eyes. It was no stretch to make him look like Jareth either. Sarah wouldn’t see it coming.

Except Jareth would leave her side. Not even when she manipulated Sarah into having nightmares. Not even when they argued and Sarah left to the mortal realm. It wasn’t until Maeve dropped obvious hints to Madoc that Jareth even left her side for a moment to try and find Maeve.

Idiot.

Maeve couldn’t believe he would so easily fall for such an obvious set up.

Toby arrived with Sarah and placed her upon the table. With a wave of her hands, Maeve bound Sarah’s unconscious body to it, black carbon steel chains snaking out from underneath and wrapping around her arms, legs and waist. Not even a second later, Toby moved swiftly into a crouch and hissed. Maeve didn’t need to turn around to see who it was. With a snap of her fingers, chains seized Jareth’s legs and arms so he could step no closer. She turned slowly to leer at the glowering Goblin King.

“Let her go,” Jareth growled, baring his teeth, his eyes a fierce and burning scarlet.

“You might want to be careful, now.” Maeve pulled out a dagger and smoothly pointed it at Sarah’s throat. “As they say, I hold all the cards. You find yourself at my mercy.”

Jareth only glared at her and Toby, saying nothing in return. Maeve narrowed her eyes, curling her lip in contempt. With a short wave of her hand, the chains around Jareth’s wrists retracted to the floor, pulling him forcefully onto his knees. He yanked against them, but could not break free from their grasp, grunting in pain when they tightened. He yielded to them only to glare furiously at Maeve.

“Well then, that’s much better. I do like the sight of you on your knees, Jareth,” Maeve smirked.

“State your business, then,” Jareth snapped. “A trade? An offer?”

“Oh, no.” Maeve shook her head. “You have nothing to bargain with, sweety.”

“What do you want, then?” he asked through his teeth.

“Why, revenge of course.” Maeve smiled unkindly before removing the blade from Sarah’s throat for a moment, before touching her cheek with the back of her long, sharp nailed fingers.

“Don’t you touch her!” Jareth strained against the chains furiously.

“I will break you,” she threatened him, still smiling, running her hands over Sarah’s neck. “I will make you beg, grovel, and plead. I will humiliate you. You will wish you were dead and only then will I maybe consider granting you the mercy of death.”

Sarah stirred.

“Oh, right, I almost forgot! Do you know where you are, Jareth?” Maeve grinned coldly down at him. When he did not answer she gestured around her. In the darkness the huge room was cast into a solid shadow, broken only by the overhead light pooling in from a large crystal overhead shining light directly around the area of the table like a spot light. “You are inside the Castle of the Court of Midnight. Your presence here is nothing short of an act of war.”

Maeve delighted in Jareth’s sudden blanching. She was getting to him, and she relished it.

”After I give you a spot in our court, was this really your plan all along, Maeve?”

Maeve twisted on the spot and froze as High King Madoc and High Queen Titania stepped from the shadows.

 

—————————————-

 

At first, there was only darkness. Sarah felt nothing and was nothing. But yet, she was still vaguely aware of herself. She couldn’t move or force herself to wake up. But then again, part of her didn’t want to. She was tired. Then there was voices and a dull, aching pain. Not able to hear what they were saying because it sounded very muffled, Sarah focused on the dull pulsating pain. What was that? It was annoying.

The voices grew louder, and Sarah became much more aware. She didn’t recognize the female’s voice at first, but she sounded conversational. At first Sarah paid no attention to her, but after a few moments she started to force herself to. There was something in the woman’s tone. Something that made Sarah uneasy. Except while words would make sense individually, the whole sentence wouldn’t. The responding voices made little sense either.

Attempts to move, to sit up, or even just to switch positions were not working. Sarah was very uncomfortable and laying on something stiff. Annoyed, she lifted her head and tried to open her eyes. Even that felt slow and heavy. Squinting against the light overhead, she registered she was in on a table. There were figures, but she had no chance to see who was there.

Then there was a scream. A loud, inhuman, horrifying screeching noise that caused Sarah to slam her head back as she flinched away. Before she could look what that was, soft hands covered her eyes.

“Don’t look, Sarah.”

The voice was familiar, gentle, and Sarah trusted it. The screeching noise came again, loudly, following the sound of metal clinking together, then an explosive flinching bang. Then a new scream.

Another hand gently ran along the side of her arms, then her legs. Whatever was holding her down fell away with the sound of rattling metal. Sarah couldn’t see what was going on past the hand that covered her eyes. Someone else scooped Sarah up.

“Make sure she keeps her eyes shut, Madoc…”

Madoc? As in the Erlking?

There was loud quick shuffling, scraping, ripping, screaming, and it all sounded like there was something viciously attacking someone nearby. Fear etched into Sarah. There was a sobbing, fearful, pained wimper coming from some girl. As the hand fell away from her eyes, Sarah twisted to see. She had to.

The one who held her now shifted her so she could not look, but in a brief moment, she saw what looked like a large, pale creature.

Sarah looked up to see that it was Madoc who was carrying her. His grey eyes seeming to glow against his dark grey skin, his white hair flowing out around him from a slight breeze as he walked.

“Please put me down,” Sarah mumbled, but another screeching noise drowned her out. Sarah twisted, but he wouldn’t let her go. “Let me down!”

There was the sound of someone running. Then a fair haired girl Sarah vaguely recognized rushed past, her scarlet eyes widened in terror, blood dripping from deep gashes and what Sarah registered slowly and horrifically as what should have been an arm.

“Madoc!” The female’s voice from behind Madoc was definitely Titania.

Sarah felt Madoc drop her to her feet and moved to cover her eyes. But she was already prepared. The moment her feet touched the ground she twisted away and accidentally launched herself in front of whatever was barreling at the blond haired girl.

“Please, help me!” cried the girl behind her. “He’s going to kill me!”

The creature halted, with a scraping of claws against what should have been stone. As dust from the dirt kicked up as it slid, Sarah looked around her.

Madoc must have carried Sarah through a portal. A portal which the girl had run through, followed by the creature. A portal to the familiar woods outside of the Goblin City. Indeed the walls and gates to the city were not far away in the darkness. Home.

Madoc looked as though he was unsure and worried, his arm half-lifted as though he meant to reach out and yank her away. Titania’s violet eyes were widened in shock as she looked around from behind him. And where they came from appeared to be a portal that led to a dark room.

The creature shifted to stalk around Sarah, but she side-stepped in front of it and snapped a glare towards the creature. Sarah briefly considered that she should have been afraid, but she wasn’t.

Sarah was certainly sure that the creature was a male. The creature looked like a huge, pale-feathered barn owl. She had little doubt in her mind that this must be Jareth. Coming off the top of his barn owl head were long, pointed, narrow ears, and a thick mane of feathers ruffled in agitation. He was thin bodied, and had long four-toed talons, and on his his wings a thumb and forefinger talon. His black eyes were narrowed angrily, and Sarah did not miss the sharp beak. He screeched again, trying to move around Sarah.

“Sarah,” whimpered the girl from behind her. “Keep him away from me! Please!”

Sarah turned to look at her, and realized with a jolt of shock that it was Maeve. Without the scowl and lip curled in disgust, and with all the gashes and blood, Sarah didn’t recognize her.

Slowly, it registered. The look-a-like Jareth, the darkened room, the table and now this. Sarah looked behind Jareth and saw the portal had already closed. Maeve must have been up to something.

“Oh.” Sarah turned again to look down at Maeve. “What have you done?”

“Please! Just let me go! I won’t bother you ever again! Please!” she whimpered pathetically.

Jareth screeched again.

“OH-KAY!” Sarah wheeled around and glared at Jareth angrily. “That was right in my ear! Cut that out!”

His eyes widened slightly as he took a step back and stared at her. Then he tilted his head. Maeve scrambled to her feet weakly and backed away, then ran off, limping.

“Sarah,” Titania said quietly. “We can't let her go.”

“Sure we can. She’s beaten.”

“There’s a lot you don’t know about this situation, Sarah. She’s only going to go back to the Midnight Court and we will have a war on our hands,” Madoc stated grimly. “We weren’t going to kill her.”

“Could have fooled me,” Sarah said honestly, looking at Madoc incredulously. “Jareth seemed ready to.” She stuck a thumb out and pointed at the overgrown owl. “And nobody else seemed to want to stop him.”

“She’s a vampire, Sarah. Only very specific things can kill them. They regenerate,” Titania said patiently.

Jareth easily jumped over Sarah and took off after the retreating figure of Maeve. He pounced on her and held her screaming and writhing form as still as possible. But then he looked at Sarah carefully. He clicked his beak a few times as if arguing with her, then hissed at Maeve as she broke into terrified sobs.

“That doesn’t make it right,” Sarah mumbled to herself. “Just let her go.”

“She was going to kill you, Sarah,” Madoc said gravely. “Don’t you think she will only do it again if she has the chance?”

“She kidnapped your baby brother and brainwashed him just to get to you. Toby, wasn’t that his name?” Titania added. “This girl went way too far. We will not ‘just let her go.’ What kind of statement do you think that makes for us?”

Sarah froze at the name of her brother. And for a long moment, she she didn’t dare move or breathe.

“What?” she asked finally, turning slowly to Titania.

“We will explain later,” Madoc shook his head. “Things just got a little more complicated.” He pointed behind Sarah.

Not far from where Jareth had Maeve pinned to the ground, a portal had opened, and dark cloaked figures were exiting through it. Jareth heard them and sprung off Maeve, landing nearby to Sarah, before standing. Sarah mentally noted he seemed to be nearly a third taller than he usually was. 

The one behind the cloaked male in front scoffed at Maeve.

“Pathetic…” he sneered.

“I am shocked, Erlking Madoc,” the one in front spoke. “I expected more from an ally. Instead I find you colluding with the Seelie Queen Titania and invading our territory?”

“And I expected better of you,” Madoc responded coldly. “Encouraging kidnapping, now, are we?”

“I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“I had accepted Maeve into my court as a favor to you and a peace offering. In turn she kidnaps a human child for petty revenge and uses that child to bait another to, as you said ‘invade your territory.’ How terribly convenient.”

“Or, perhaps you encouraged Maeve to kidnap a child in order to push blame on us,” he grinned nastily at Madoc. “To bait us to appear in the wrong, is that it? Perhaps it is war that you want.”

Madoc did not respond except for to narrow his eyes at the other. Titania raised a hand to her forehead in exasperation.

Jareth smoothly shrunk down to his usual height his feathers becoming a cloak, which caught a momentary light breeze that responded to his transformation before settling around him.

“You are on the grounds my kingdom now,” Jareth growled darkly. “Take this council elsewhere.”

“Yes. Surely you’d find it more comfortable to negotiate on even ground, Rhanforth?” Madoc suggested.

“No, I think it’s clear that negotiations are not possible at this point,” the hooded faerie said snidely. “Would you agree?” He turned to his fellows in hooded cloaks, and they all nodded sagely in agreement. Triumphantly, he looked back at Madoc. “Such a shame. Our allegiance is over, Erlking. Ta-ta.”

As they left back through the portal, one of the hooded members yanked Maeve’s sniveling form up by her arm roughly and yanked her through with them.

Then it disappeared.

Sarah was still in a state of shock.

“Fools…” Titania hissed. “They were wanting war all this time.”

“They were looking for a means to gain support over it, apparently,” Madoc said quietly. “I can’t say that I’m surprised, however. I was expecting this.”

“This isn’t my fault, is it?” Sarah asked them, looking at the ground. She recalled her mistakes going all the way back to when she returned. Had she not returned to the labyrinth, Maeve wouldn’t have had her excuse.

“No, I don’t think so,” Madoc smiled kindly at her. “They were looking for reasons, Sarah. It could have been for anything.”

“I’m actually happy this happened,” Titania added in, crossing her arms underneath her chest. “I was getting sick of walking on eggshells around that girl.”

“So… About Toby?” Sarah asked tugging on a lock of her hair.

Titania bit her lip and looked at Madoc. Madoc returned her gaze a moment before both looked simultaneously at Jareth. Sarah looked over at Jareth, following their gaze with a frown, and saw Jareth staring blankly back at them. His mismatched blue eyes flicked to meet her green ones for a brief moment, and Sarah saw a hint of anger flicker across his face.

“Well, we have a lot to plan for tomorrow morning,” Madoc said twisting around and heading off in a general direction away from them. 

“Have a good night. Try not to kill each other?” Titania added following after the Erlking.


	6. Midnight

“How many times must I say it before it gets in that fool head of yours?” Jareth was casually leaning against a tree, his arms crossed tightly against his chest. “Don’t judge a fae by their looks.”

Sarah didn’t say anything in response. She only crossed her own arms and looked away.

“Sarah… She could have killed you.” His tone had dropped from that paternal “I told you so” tone to an almost rough, pleading one. “We can’t afford to make mistakes like that. One slip up-.”

“I get it. I messed up,” Sarah cut in coldly, glaring at a group of innocent, gently glowing, purple mushrooms on the ground nearby. “It’s embarrassing enough as it is. You don’t need to rub it in…”

There was a moment of silence. Sarah could feel his eyes on her, heat prickling on the back of her neck. She resisted her urge to turn and look at him.

“I’ll be more careful next time,” Sarah added into the tense silence.

“Next time...” Jareth repeated it quietly, as if he were considering a choice between two uncomfortable ideas. “I don’t think you understand the amount of danger you put yourself in, Sarah. She was going to kill you.” Something trembled in his voice, but when Sarah turned to look, his expression was so emotionless that she decided she must have imagined it. “I can’t afford to let that happen again.”

This was getting into dangerous “you can never be alone” territory, and Sarah wasn’t about to let it come close. She squared her shoulders and stared Jareth right in the eye, setting her jaw firmly. He stared at her slightly, his eyes narrowing.

“I am capable of defending myself, Jareth. Yes, I am-,” she added in, cutting Jareth off as he opened his mouth. He snapped it shut and glared at her. “If you had just  _ told _ me what’s going on, I would have been more careful. Communication is a huge deal for a reason, Jareth. This issue is equal parts your fault as much as it’s mine.”

Jareth looked off to the side before nodding.

“Fair enough.”

“Which brings me to the topic of this uncomfortable ‘do as I say’ thing.” Sarah gestured, then began to pace. “I don’t know how it normally works here, but where I come from, a healthy relationship is where two partners work together equally. I mean it used to be this whole ‘the man has a say in what the woman does’ thing but that was starting to change. At least ten years ag-.”

“Sarah.”

“No-no. Let me finish my point, please. Sorry, I went a little off topic there. But mainly what you said a couple months ago or whatever. I can’t just be expected to act the part of one of your servants, Jareth. It’s just not-.”

“ _ Sarah!” _ Jareth interjected so sharply it made Sarah flinch and stare at him. “It is not as though I would be asking you to shine my boots, or clean up after the chickens. If I were to ask you to do anything, it would be mainly for your safety. I’ll be damned if anything happened to you!” He pressed a hand against his face for a moment, taking a deep breath before he lowered his tone. “ All I ask is for you to trust me. Surely  _ trust _ is also one of those things in a healthy relationship?” When Sarah did not respond, he continued. “So you want us to work together. Say there isn’t any time to explain at the moment, as was the case, could you then instead trust me to explain after when I do have the time?”

“How? One moment we are having dinner, the next you just up and leave without saying anything and when I go home there’s Sir Didymus telling me I must stay by his side for absolutely no reason he was allowed to tell me. How was I supposed to know what to look out for?!” Sarah threw her arms widely around, her voiced raised. Jareth winced.

“You know, you don’t have to shout, love. I’ve got amazingly sharp hearing,” he said quietly rubbing his temples. “Look-.” He looked back up to her and lowered his hands out, palms up in a sharp gesture. “- I’ve got centuries of experience leading this kingdom. When it comes to my subjects, yes I do know what’s best for them. No- Let me finish.” He raised his hand, palm pressed towards her when she opened her mouth to interrupt. He waited a moment, his lips pressed into a thin line. “Sarah, please understand that for most things, yes you are my equal. And, believe me, if there is insight you might provide or a change you might suggest, I’d be welcoming to hear it. But I am also this kingdom’s king. So please respect that on some level. That’s all I’m asking of you.”

“It wasn’t before. What was it you said…? ‘Fear me, love me.’”

“Yes.”

“I don’t understand why you aren’t getting it!” Sarah three her hands up. Jareth winced again at the level of her tone. “Fear is not the same as respect, Goblin King. Respect is mutual. Fear is forced and one sided.”

“Fear  _ is _ respect of my power and ability, Sarah.”

“So that’s it then? You scare me into submission and think that’s ok?”

“I didn’t say that,” he said quietly, frowning at her. “Don’t get so caught up in semantics.”

“Oh, that’s rich coming from you, Mr. ‘what’s said is said!’”

“Enough!” he snapped, eyes flashing angrily

Sarah dropped her gaze. Part of her wanted to fight this. She didn’t know or understand why. She thought momentarily about turning her back and walking away from this. But she froze. Was that what she really wanted to do?

No. No it wasn’t. She shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. She was being childish and stubborn. He really wasn’t asking a lot, was he? But the mere idea of letting him have any ounce of power over her felt wrong. But then if she really did trust him, that wouldn’t be a problem to start with. Didn’t she trust him? She hadn’t really given him much opportunity to prove he could be trustworthy in that manner yet, had she?

Sarah looked up, aware that she was pacing again and peered over at Jareth. He was waiting patiently, silently. His eyes were filled with worry, and his face was tense with stress, but he was being patient. She had to give him credit.

“Jareth…” There was a lot she wanted to say right then. But none of it would come. She shrugged and shook her head. “I’ll work on the trust thing while you work on the communication thing.”

He stared at her for a long moment before seeming to relax.

“Sure,” he agreed, nodding.

With that mostly out of the way…

“Now… Explain what happened to Toby,” Sarah said quickly.

Jareth scowled. “Really, Sarah? Can’t that wait a little bit?” She shook her head. “Fine… Maeve kidnapped him sometime after the hearing. Raised him. Brainwashed him. All but morphed him to look like me, all for the sake of tricking you so she could bait me. You saw the results.”

“ _ That _ was Toby?” Sarah stared incredulously at Jareth.

“Yes.” He looked Sarah directly in her eyes.

“I’ve got to talk to him-.”

“No, Sarah. He wants to kill you.”

“He’s my brother!” Sarah glared furiously at Jareth. Angry for him cutting her off like that, not even giving it any thought.

“Not anymore he isn’t.” Jareth pushed off the tree, and crossed his arms again, pacing towards and around Sarah. “The only thing he knows is his mistress, her wants and desires, and nothing else.”

“Can’t we fix that?” she pleaded desperately.

An eyebrow cocked sardonically for a moment before he raised them both. “No. There’s nothing that can be done. Very few children remember their time as a human at all when they become one of us, let alone a thrall.” Sarah stared at him in mingled confusion and shock, so he added, “he’s a vampire-made thrall, nothing but a husk, made only to follow orders.”

Sarah stared, wordlessly gaping at Jareth’s stoney face. She wanted sound to come out. But none came. She covered her mouth instead and looked down. She didn’t even know how to begin to process any of that.

So that’s it then? No more Toby. Period.

Tears stung Sarah’s eyes as she recalled all that effort she put in the labyrinth to save him from becoming a goblin, only for her to screw it up all over again. The worst part of it all was that he had been better off as a goblin.

There was nothing she could do. She messed up.

Sarah was startled out of her thoughts when a hand clasped around her arms. She looked up in time to see Jareth’s softened and apprehensive expression as he wordlessly tugged her close to him, then wrapped his arms around her tightly. His feathery cloak fell around her.

“It’s not impossible,” he amended. “It’s very unlikely there is anything to be done, but we can see what we can do. Alright?”

Sarah felt herself relax, and the thoughts that clouded her head cleared. She was certain it must have been magic, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. Her cheek was pressed against the bare part of his chest, a little below the dip between the clavicles. She breathed in his comfortingly familiar scent.

Movement of something glowing caught her eye. She looked and saw what appeared to be a blue lightning bug. But it was so big. It fluttered gently by. Then another. Sarah became fascinated, her eyes shining brightly as she started to move towards wherever it was they were going. But Jareth held her still. The Forest seemed to glow with them. The purple mushrooms scattered around, even the green moss that coated the forest floor and enormous tree trunks began to glow. A faint song seemed to emanate from everywhere, echoing around the trees.

Sarah wanted to find the music. That must be where the blue glowing orbs where heading to. It sounded peaceful and soothing. A few goblins ran in the direction Sarah wanted to go. Where they came from, she had no idea, but they paid attention to neither Sarah nor their king as they skipped and hopped enthusiastically.

Sarah frowned.

“What is this?” she whispered, turning to look up at Jareth.

“It’s midnight,” he said gently. Jareth looked deeply into her eyes, and as the light of a blue orb floated past, Sarah clearly saw his one black eye. His owl eye. Owl. Sarah blinked.

“Jareth, you can turn into a big owl,” she muttered.

“Well, they don’t call me the owl king for nothing,” he said through his teeth he had bared in a prideful grin.

“I have never heard you called that.” Sarah frowned at him. “The goblin king, sure, but nothing else.”

“Lord of Tears, Moloch, Owlman, Owl King, Goblin King, Jareth…” He shrugged. “I have been given many other names and many other titles over the centuries. I can’t remember all of them.”

Sarah stared at him for a moment. The music around them swelled gently like a choir in crescendo as a brighter blue light began to pass between the trees, distracting her momentarily. As she started to turn her face to see what the light was, she felt a gloved hand press against her cheek, forcing her to look Jareth in the eye again. They were glittering, shining in the magical lights of the forest. There was something peculiar in his expression.

“Sarah.” He said her name in such a husky baritone voice, it nearly sounded as if he were purring. It completely captivated her attention. “Come morning we are to be wed. Since time was stolen from you, if you need me to reorder time, I will. Or, if it is your wish, we can call it off.”

His tone sounded so pleasant, yet his words carried so much weight. Sarah hadn’t thought about it until then. Everything seemed to freeze in place. Nothing moved. Even the music in the air stopped.

The words of his song he sang to her a few times before came fluidly to her mind’s ear.

_ Down in the underground. You’ll find someone true. _

Broken bits of the lyrics began to make more sense, as she stared into his eyes.

_ A land serene. A crystal moon. _

She looked up and saw, peeking through the heavy leafy arms of the gigantic trees, a very large and full moon.

_ It’s only forever. Not long at all. _

The last line made sense to her in a way it that it had never before. Were she to wed herself to Jareth, to become his bride, to become his queen? It’s only forever.

Jareth was, by no stretch of the imagination, someone she loved more than anything. Yes. Yes she was definitely sure she loved him. She finally realized what emotion to attach to that word that she had only read about in stories. Beyond the butterflies in her stomach, beyond the want to be near to him, beyond the burning in her cheeks. There was an overwhelming feeling of belonging. Of happiness. Sure, he was insufferably infuriating at times, but somehow she found that perplexingly attractive. He was smart, enjoyed books about as much as she did, he was funny, and to top it all off, he was beautiful.

What had her so worried to start with though? Could she even begin to word it? Marriage wasn’t as the books made it out to be. Wasn’t that the reality? Men changed.

Except Jareth was no man.

So… What was the harm in it? She’d be the queen of the goblins. A grin lit up her face as she imagined it. She could not honestly imagine her life without Jareth anymore. In fact, the very idea of him disappearing was unfathomable. Even thinking about it made her grin disappear.

She became aware of the fact her neck was starting to ache from looking up at Jareth for so long. Sarah silently cursed the fae for being so damned tall and pressed her cheek against his chest like before. He curled his arms around her. Comfortable satisfaction filled her as she heard him draw in a slow breath, and exhale in a sigh.

But that’s when Sarah noticed noticed quite nearly everything was standing still because they were surrounded by many blue orbs, goblins, pixies, dwarfs, and several other creatures Sarah didn’t know the name of. They all seemed to be waiting in collective anticipation.

One of the goblins leaned forward on his toes so far it had tripped over and fell face first into the dirt. It’s legs wiggling in the air, Sarah covered her giggle with her hand, pushing off of Jareth, who let her go unwillingly. She approached the little goblin and picked him up, gently putting him back on his feet.

“So the Goblin King wants me to be his Goblin Queen, huh?” Sarah mused quietly, more to herself than to the wide eyed little goblin. The goblins around her leaned in, their eyes growing big. “Well, what do you think? Should I?” she asked them.

As the goblins nodded and muttered their approvals, Jareth stared at her in bemused bewilderment.

“What?” Sarah asked him when she noticed his expression. He shook his head and crossed his arms. He did not appear angry, so Sarah decided that the gesture was more uncomfortable than anything else.

“You did not answer me.”

Sarah considered pointing out her indirect answer through the goblins, but as the moment passed, she ultimately decided that perhaps she was being unfairly unromantic by doing so. But, as she noticed, she wasn’t entirely in the mood to be completely romantic either. An idea sprang into her head. It was just ridiculous enough that Sarah’s face lit up into a mischievous grin the king would be proud of.

_ Say your right words. _

“I wish that you would marry me, Jareth,” she stated boldly, standing up and squaring her shoulders. “Right now.”

A forceful gust of wind picked up out of nowhere, billowing Jareth’s feathered cloak out and around him, his hair masking his face. For the brief moment before the gale had hit, his eyes had widened in shock.

Sarah protected her face from her own hair, her eyes watering slightly from it whipping at her mercilessly.

And almost as soon as it had come, it died.

Sarah stared around her, disturbed, her windswept hair tangled and messy. But she was better off than some of the faeries that were recovering. A few had gotten completely knocked over, though the blue floating orbs remained unfazed and unmoved. The larger hobgoblins fixed their helmets.

“What the hell was that?” Sarah demanded to Jareth, running her fingers through her hair in an attempt to smooth it. Sarah noted his Royal Self looked as though it had only been a light breeze. His wild feathery pale hair looked undisturbed and as it normally did. Blue and owl eye widened, he stared at her for a moment in silence.

“In case you had forgotten, your words have power to them,” he said quietly. “On top of that, before any of this, I had given you certain powers.” A small smile played upon his features. Jareth almost looked prideful for a moment before his expression flattened sternly. “While I appreciate the sentiment behind it, I had to stop that wish in its tracks, precious. If we were to wed right here and right now, Madoc would be rather put out…”

The faeries encircling them seemed to lean even closer. Jareth, who had ignored them for the most part, trailed off and looked around at them all.

“Right, you lot. Get going. Go on, back to your homes,” he said loudly, placing his hands on his hips. When they didn’t move immediately, his eyes flashed angrily as he threw up his hands. “Well?!”

The massive scattering of faeries dispersing in any direction away was humorous. Some of the goblins tripped over one another comically, and a couple pixies collided with objects and themselves in their haste. Within seconds, Jareth and Sarah were alone. Even the purple mushrooms seemed to glow less.

But while that distracted Sarah slightly, she was still a bit confused.

“I… Marriage is only a ceremony? A traditional literal show of the binding between two families,” Sarah muttered.

“Human marriages pale in comparison, Sarah. Do remember to stop comparing humans with fae.” He tilted his head at her quizzically. “Marriage, here, is not a contract binding you to me by family. It is a binding of magic. And even that is an understatement.” He straightened and crossed his arms again, but his expression remained quizzical. “Given now this clarity, I see now why you were so worried about the little ‘magic show’ between us that would happen. It is more than just a show of magic being played between a couple. Much more. It is a bonding between magic, which is why in some cases things get a bit messy.”

Sarah recalled the Erlking speaking to her somewhat on the matter and she flushed in chagrin. Oh, how stupid she must have sounded. But wait... Something Jareth said refocused her.

”’Bonding between magic?’” she repeated. “What do you mean by that?”

“To put it simply, precious, you will have direct access to my magic.”

Sarah’s jaw dropped slightly for a moment as she considered that. Well, she already had some general control over crystals. Teleporting, gravity and time manipulation seemed a little too meta for her. Honestly, what other powers did he actually have?

“So, I could transform into an owl?”

“I’m not sure,” he said shrugging lightly. “I wouldn’t think so. That’s more of a personal ability more than it is magic. Though, considering magic is involved it’s possible. We will see, won’t we?”

“I guess so,” Sarah said frowning in thought. “Fiddling with time. Bogging annoyances. Popping into places at random. Spying. Or scrying. Whatever it is that you do through those crystals. Moving the stars, reordering time, and turning the world upside down…” Thinking of nothing else to add, Sarah looked back to Jareth who had adopted a look of incredulousness. “What?”

“Is that really all you think I’m capable of?” He sounded offended.

“Granting wishes?” Sarah added, questioningly. “But all fae can do that to the extent of their abilities.”

“But speak nothing of glamor, mesmerization, telepathy, invisibility, luck granting, shadow melding, healing, photo and chlorokinesis, illusions, elemental powers. Speak not about the fact that I  _ am _ magic. I do not cast spells, or use magic of others, because I create that magic. This is the natural ability of fae.” He paused a moment to look at Sarah, tilting his head. “Magi call upon fae to do magic. Witches and wizards utilize the magic that already exists around them. Wasn’t this all what I covered before?”

Sarah couldn’t remember going over all that, but being that it was almost a month ago since her last magic “lesson” and she barely managed a simple prism, she didn’t doubt she might have forgotten a few things.

“Shouldn’t all that come naturally to me?” Sarah muttered.

“As a fae, it should have, but as you are not pure born, I’d say no,” Jareth said, once again tilting his head. “My guess is that you became a fae because of the powers I gave you when I marked you.”

Sarah remembered that conversation. She shook her head. Part of her began to wonder how much more Maeve would try to do if they postponed the marriage any longer. The thought was terrifying, to say the least. But after… Could she actually have the power to stop her? She had small abilities now, certainly. But Sarah couldn’t help but look forward to being able to utilize Jareth’s abilities. She never had to worry about being a damsel in distress. Hell, in fact, Sarah realized she never had to worry about the unfairness of Jareth being more powerful than her to start with. Once they were married, the playing field would be completely even and fair. Aside from his level of experience, of course.

“Ok, well… The point I was trying to make was that I feel I am ready, Jareth.”

A half-grin cracked the side of his face, at the sound of his name. “I think I got that point when you made your wish, princess.”


	7. The Goblin Queen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took me a while. I had trouble figuring out how I wanted this to play out, and in the end, I think I like how this turned out, myself.  
> Lots of reading back over and listening to the movie’s soundtrack.  
> Hopefully the intended effect is there. Thanks for your patience!
> 
> Please enjoy~

With an uncomfortable feeling that her stomach was being suspended upside down over the bog of eternal stench, Sarah spent much of her time she could have used to sleep pacing around the castle. She had tried to sleep, but she worried that her restlessness might wake Jareth. The throne room was packed with slumbering goblins, chickens and a large blonde coated wolf, so Sarah stepped quietly through them and went up the stairs.

It was a good thing everyone was asleep. All she was wearing was a pair of underwear and one of Jareth’s white silky shirts. Fortunately for her, the shirt went damn near to her knees. But the smaller goblins were barely knee-high standing up, let alone all being asleep, and it wouldn’t take much for one to look up. Sarah imagined the Goblin King would be none too pleased that one or more of his subjects got a good gander up at his very soon to be wife.

Yea, Sarah has to admit, the idea that they would be married later that day was rather thrilling.

The last time she had been up these steps were to rescue Toby. She had had no desire before to return to M.C. Escher styled room, but now that Toby was completely gone she found herself feeling sentimental. And rightfully so.

But what she found instead was a simple, ordinary tower. Of course. That made sense. Jareth must have used his magic to make the tower into the weird room that defied all gravity.

She climbed the stairs, her sense of adventure pushing aside her shock and her sentimentality nearly instantly, giving no room for disappointment. The steps led upwards in a dark spiral until finally she found a landing that had a door. From the way the tower was shaped, the door would naturally lead outside, right?

Sure enough, it led straight to the roof. But across the roof was another tower. Carefully, Sarah started to make her way across the gabel shaped stone roofing. There was no walkway, giving Sarah the impression that the other tower held something secret. The wind gusted the moment she left the protection of the tower’s landing, knocking her off balance. She smacked her hip hard onto the side of the roof with a short, sharp scream.

Groaning in pain, she rolled onto her stomach, grateful for the friction the stone roofing was providing, keeping her from simply sliding off. She laid there for a moment, waiting for the throbbing to subside from her hip. When it wouldn’t, she lightly pressed on her hip. Wincing, she let out a grunt in pain, but noted that she did not feel anything broken. But there was blood, and the area definitely felt tender.

Sarah sucked in a breath and moved to crawl the rest of the way across sideways. Sarah cast a glance over her shoulder. The huge full moon was maybe halfway between midnight and the horizon. But if anyone thought to look up towards the castle, they’d easily spot Sarah, who was glowing white in the light of the moon in contrast to the dark stone castle. Though, maybe she’d just look like a ghost.

The wind was strong, but once Sarah got to the other door, she pulled herself up with the door handle and opened the door. It creaked loudly.

Finally out of the wind, Sarah smoothed her hair. She climbed the stairs and shortly came to a roof hatch. She opened it, her heart rapidly beating in anticipation.

The hatch opened downwards, a ladder sliding out with it slowly. Sarah climbed it easily and peaked into the dark room. It wasn’t dusty at all, like an attic would be. The moon shone brilliantly through the large, tall window, it’s light bathing most of the room in silver. It seemed to be Jareth’s. Crystal orbs of all sizes decorated the place. It was cluttered almost with as much stuff. Sarah noted that everything seemed to be discarded shiny items and piles of books. It was disorganized and cluttered. Even the tall, steepled roof was littered with shiny objects hanging from it. Some of the glittering objects seemed to be bottles. Some empty, some full. In only the light of the moon, it was hard to tell, but Sarah could bet the room was vibrantly colored and sparkled.

Sarah kept looking behind her uneasily. She felt like she was being watched for a whole minute before she found what was making her uneasy.

In the dark opposite the window just outside of the moonbeams were two large glowing orbs. Sarah stared at them for a while. They really did look like eyes for a while there.

Sarah froze, her heart skipping more beats than was really healthy. Those were definitely, absolutely, unmistakably eyes.

The glowing orbs blinked at her silent horror, but then they tilted to the side.

“J-Jareth?” Sarah gasped out, her voice scratchy and hoarse from being unused aside from a scream. To Sarah’s immense relief, Jareth stepped into the reach of the moonbeams enough that his face was no longer hidden in the shadows. “Weren’t you just in bed?”

“Yes, I was asleep,” he said airily, looking down at her hip. “That is, until I was woken up by the sound of a scream.”

“Oh, you heard that…”

“Needn’t I remind you that I have exceptionally good hearing, precious,” he reminded. He looked back down at her hip. This time she followed his gaze. A good portion of the once white shirt was now stained red where it was still a bit wet, but brownish where it had dried. Sarah frowned. Blood was also crushed along her leg. It must have been a pretty decent scrape then. Sarah refused to look.

As Sarah looked back up, she realized Jareth had already closed off the distance between them, and was now reaching down to lift up the shirt. It finally clicked in her head that he intended to lift the shirt all the way up, possibly off, and she clasped a hand around his gloved wrist. He froze, and raised his eyebrows her.

“What?” Sarah asked him shrewdly, narrowing her eyes at his expression. “Am I supposed to be ok with you randomly stripping me?”

“To see the state of your wound, yes.” Jareth’s response was cold.

“It’s just a scrape, Jareth, geez…” She rolled her eyes and pushed his arm away. “It’s already stopped bleeding.” He pursed his lips at her. “It’s not a big deal.”

“Would you quit being stubborn, princess?” He pulled his glove off his hand. “You don’t have healing abilities just yet, so if you would allow me, I would like to treat your wound.”

Sarah was going to argue. She opened her mouth when she noticed the look on his face.

_ “You need to trust me.”  _ His eyes said.

She groaned in frustration. Then looking away, her cheeks burning bright red, she roughly lifted the side of the shirt above her waist, using the other to keep the shirt covering her dignity.

Jareth made an impatient noise, almost between a snort and a hiss, before he leaned down and pressed his bare hand against the abrasion.

Sarah’s knees buckled under as she cried out in pain. Jareth caught her fall with his other arm and braced her against him. He bared his teeth and grunted as if in pain himself.

_ “It’s not a big deal?” _ he hissed, repeating her. “Sarah, You  _ fractured  _ your hip!”

“Do you have to press on it so hard?!” Sarah seethed between gasps for air. Clutching desperately to his shoulder, trying to keep upright.

“Precious, I’m being as gentle as I possibly can be… Trust me, I am very well aware of the pain.”

She shut her eyes closed tight as another pang shot through her. It was taking all of her will not to cry out. He muttered under his breath something about “next time don’t go wandering on the roof…” or something of that nature. Sarah couldn’t really focus. Not in that moment. But after a second maybe or more, (she found it hard to tell how long,) the pain finally disappeared. There was a peculiar pleasant tingling that washed over her starting from where Jareth’s hand was, and the sudden release made her relax into him. He lifted his hand and embraced her tightly.

“Thanks…” Sarah murmured.

“Anything for you,” he whispered. Something about the way he said it made her heart do an unsteady jig in her chest.

They stayed locked in that tight embrace for a while, and during that while, Sarah began to feel strange, as if they weren’t close enough.

His cheek was pressed into her hair, his warm breath she could feel against her scalp, and the tip of one ear. Her face was buried against his leather collar of his vest. His dark colored silk shirt, Sarah thought it must be red, but in the moonlight it was hard to tell. It had looked blue. The rest of her was mostly touching or pressed against him. And the scent of him… The hint of cinnamon.

Letting her mind wander, she considered the tingling sensation, and the apparent pain he’d been in. Momentarily she wondered if he had felt it, too, and for a brief moment she understood instantly that her scream hadn’t been the only thing that had woken him up. He had felt her hit the roof. Had he always been this empathicly connected to her?

Yes, she decided it must be the connection between them. It’s worked both ways. Sarah didn’t really realize it before, but she was always quick to pick up on his moods. She’d never done that so well before with anyone else.

Sarah felt comfortable here, and wonderfully at home. He seemed to be as well, though he moved a little to put his glove back on. He pressed his lips against her forehead, right at her hairline, and stayed there. Inside her chest, her heart dancing the jig seemed to have tripped over itself and Sarah was filled with a sudden urge to admit something she felt strongly about. It wouldn’t quiet down otherwise, she thought.

“Jareth?” Sarah asked. He only grunted in response, tiredly. “I love you.”

He clasped her shoulders and pulled away slightly to look Sarah directly in her eyes. At this angle, the moon seemed to make them glow.

“I’ve always loved you, Sarah. From the very moment I first saw you,” he said in a husky tone. There was no lust in his eyes, Sarah noted. Only pure emotion and a little raw possessive protectfulness.

For a long moment, the both of them stood like that, Sarah letting it all sink in, and Jareth waiting patiently for her. Then, he kissed pulled her close, gently, and pressed his lips to hers.

Sarah’s head began to spin, and her heart skipped a couple times happily. She felt him part their lips and in reaction she felt her knees give out once again as she slid her arms around his neck and pressed herself deeper into the kiss. He braced her against him once more, one gloved hand moving to her lower back. He angled his head a little to the side to deepen the kiss even more.

A noise coming from outside made Sarah break apart and twist towards the window.

“Sound carries up here, love. It’s only from the city below,” he murmured quietly.

“Who the hell is up at this hour?” she wondered. She walked over to the window and peered out and down at the goblin city below. There were a few houses in one neighborhood which had lights blazing on from a few torches. From this distance in the dark, it was hard to tell what was going on. Jareth came up behind her and peered outward as well.

“One of the armored hobgoblins got a little too drunk and tripped over a chicken,” he said after barely a second. “It looks like the fool fell asleep after tripping. The chicken is making a bit of a fuss, so the neighborhood is trying to figure out what happened-.” There was another noise. “-And now they’re throwing stuff at the chicken to get it to shut up.”

“Like that’s going to help anything…” she murmured, rolling her eyes.

“They’re goblins, Sarah,” he said reproachfully.

“I know, I know.”

 

———————————————————-

 

Sarah didn’t know what she was expecting. But it definitely wasn’t this.

Of course, Sarah has been around various religions in the mortal realm, but the majority she knew of involved the tradition of walking down the isle dressed in frilly white to the person that would marry the couple.

But instead of an aisle or alter, it was a small outdoor amphitheater-like place, packed with various faeries in a full circle around a ring. There was little decor, and far less glittery than she thought it would be, considering Jareth was supposed to be in charge of the decoration. (As a matter of fact, as far as it goes, it was completely devoid of decoration, which was very strange.) But Sarah had no room for disappointment. This was far more intimidating than she imagined, and she was shaking.

“Ignore them, precious,” Jareth mumbled to her gently as he led her to the center, arm in arm.

Sarah felt Jareth was being a bit cruel. She had asked him what to expect and he never had an answer for her. Now, here she was, not knowing how to act, or what to do. Sarah had never actually been on stage before, except for during her elementary school play her mother encouraged her into. She knew her lines then and she knew her lines when she faced off against Jareth over Toby (a pang shot through Sarah as she thought of her dear baby brother, again). Here. This is what stagefright must be like.

How on earth was she supposed to ignore them when nearly a hundred pair of eyes were staring down at her.

Furthermore, Sarah had been under the impression that Madoc would be hosting, and yet, they were still in the Goblin Kingdom, last she checked. And there was definitely no Madoc.

Sarah was in the middle of contemplating that maybe after the day before’s events that Madoc was a little to busy when she realized that Jareth had picked up both her hands in his and he was now facing her.

“Sarah. Remember the ballroom?”

“The one from my drugged peach fever dream?” He winced. “Yes, of course I remember… Why bring it up?”

“Picture that.”

“I’m… What?” Sarah stared at him between shock and horror.

“Just do it.” His tone was soft, but the words were quick and sharp, as though in a hurry.

“The drugged bit or the dance?” Sarah asked him, narrowing her eyes. He shot her a glare which made Sarah crack a grin. “Yea, yea, alright. I’m only joking.”

“Close your eyes and concentrate,” Jareth instructed, taking her wrists and twisting her palms facing one another. Sarah closed her eyes. At first there was nothing, but then something heavy filled the air around her. A slow melody started playing. “Yes, exactly like that. Now focus on manifesting your magic like I showed you before…”

Sarah took a deep breath in, imagining the magic in the air pooling into her lungs. While her eyes remained closed, she felt a light that started from nowhere starting to get brighter as it glistened against her closed eyelids. Then there was a bright flash of radiance and the feeling of falling. The melody swelled and crescendoed loudly around them. Then after a moment, Jareth let go. The music died slowly to a different beat and then the radiance died down. Sarah opened her eyes in confusion.

But no sooner had the music slowed to a stop, as Sarah found herself facing a doorway covered in a gold velvet curtain. Wait, where was Jareth?

She pushed through the glittery curtain and with a shock realized they were in the very same ballroom as they had been during her peach masquerade dream. Hadn’t it only been a dream? But yet, as though a disturbing déjà vu, there was a masquerade before her in much the same design and smokey, laughing atmosphere. She covered her mouth as she realized she was now dressed in that pastel pink puffy-sleeved princess-like dress. She ran her hands past her pointed ears and found her hair was also decorated in much the same fashion. Was this supposed to be Jareth’s idea of a joke?

Sarah’s thoughts were broken suddenly by the return of the slow music as if picked back up from somewhere.

Where was Jareth? She knew he had to be somewhere. This was ridiculously so déjà vu that Sarah knew he was doing this on purpose. The music in the air was intoxicating.

Where the heck was he?!

Sarah brushed pensively past the various masked individuals. She knew exactly where she was going. Finally she found him. Masked. Exactly as she remembered him from that peach masquerade spell he had put her under.

His wild near-white hair flecked with blue to match the rhinestone decorated blue overcoat. Glittery, as usual, though even more so if that were possible. He lowered his mask and a strange, small smile broke over his features as he regarded her through relaxedly narrowed eyes.

_ “There's such a sad love, _ _   
_ _ Deep in your eyes. _ _   
_ _ A kind of pale jewel, _ _   
_ _ Open and closed, _ _   
_ _ Within your eyes. _ _   
_ _ I'll place the sky, _ _   
_ __ Within your eyes.”

The voice was clearly Jareth’s, but Sarah saw that his lips never moved. While she stared at him, he vanished away as someone interrupted her view.

Is he playing hard to get again? Why was he playing this game with her? She turned around and peered about, trying to find him. He wouldn’t be far.

“Sarah?” A familiar voice made her turn around and face a masked male with greenish black wild hair. It sounded like and sounded like Oberon, but there were no antlers or deer hooves. “You are a bit late. Is Jareth here?”

“Somewhere,” Sarah responded. She dismissed herself politely, as the music continued.

_ “There's such a fooled heart, _ _   
_ _ Beatin' so fast, _ _   
_ _ In search of new dreams, _ _   
_ _ A love that will last, _ _   
_ _ Within your heart. _ _   
_ _ I'll place the moon, _ _   
_ __ Within your heart.”

“Hello, Sarah.” A masked woman who wasn’t far from Oberon was standing with a few women. She sounded like Titania.

“Hi… Have you seen Jareth around?” Sarah asked.

“He’s… Around, yes,” Titania’s ruby red lips underneath her mask smiled slyly. Most helpful information of the year award goes to the High Queen of the Seelie Court.

Sarah excuses herself and continued searching. Oh he would be getting an earful by the end of the night.

_ “As the pain sweeps through, _ _   
_ _ Makes no sense for you. _ _   
_ _ Every thrill is gone. _ _   
_ __ Wasn't too much fun at all.”

Sarah knew Jareth was staying just out of her sight. Likely enjoying himself, watching her look for him.

_ “But I'll be there for you, _ _   
_ _ As the world falls down.” _

_ “Falling... Falling… Falling in love.” _

Sarah stopped and stood in place. Surely he would stop this little game of his eventually.

_ “I'll paint you mornings of gold. _ _   
_ _ I'll spin you Valentine evenings. _ _   
_ _ Though we're strangers 'til now, _ _   
_ _ We're choosing the path, _ _   
_ _ Between the stars. _ _   
_ _ I'll leave my love. _ _   
_ __ Between the stars.”

Movement behind her made her start, and she recognized the large white fan. It lifted slowly, and there he was. Between two masked feminine fae. Sarah tried to silence her joyously celebrating heart, wanting to be frustrated with him. But she couldn’t help herself. She really was glad to see him.

His expression was solemn, but there was something else hidden in his eyes as he approached her. Taking her gently in his arms, he swept her easily into a dance to the music.

He opened his mouth and began to sing the rest. As he did so, the others in the ballroom began to pair off and dance.

_ “As the pain sweeps through, _ _   
_ _ Makes no sense for you. _ _   
_ _ Every thrill is gone. _ _   
_ _ Wasn't too much fun at all, _ _   
_ _ But I'll be there for you-ou-ou. _ _   
_ __ As the world falls down.”

As they continued to spin and twirl to the music, Sarah realized that this wasn’t the same as her peach dream. Not exactly. No, there were some definite differences. There was no heady discombobulation, fear, or a clock chiming the 12th hour of the morning. And she didn’t want to leave. She felt she belonged in his arms. It was such a strange and warm feeling.

Sarah had already understood that the peach dream was much more than a spell. The peach was meant to make her forget everything, and yet, in the dream spell she had remembered Jareth. Now that she was here, as he spun her around gently to the music, she wondered if the peach dream had actually showed her and him this moment, or if he purposely intended to remake the scene.

When the music ended, the whole ballroom clapped enthusiastically, and Sarah realized they were encircling her and Jareth. They were both the first and last to dance. Something about that made her smile.

The room broke into merry conversation. The kind you tend to hear when many have had too much to drink.

“Jareth…” She leaned towards him to whisper. He leaned his ear closer to her in response. “What’s going on?” He looked at her between amusement and alarm. “I mean the whole… Look, I’m lost. I don’t understand what’s going-.”

“Shhh, princess. Just enjoy yourself,” he said in a low tone, close to her ear.

“Ok but did you have to make it exactly like that drugged peach dream?” Sarah demanded.

He stepped a half-step away from her to look at her straight in the eyes, disbelief creeping into his expression. He looked around swiftly then clasped her upper forearm, leading her rather forcefully behind a couple of decorated columns. There was a couple there, making out, but Jareth gave them a quick glare and a waving dismissive gesture and sent them scurrying. With a flick of his wrist, the noise on the other side of the drapes were silenced, though Sarah noticed them still laughing and carrying on like nothing was happening. He leaned up against the closest slick, decorated pillar, and crossed his arms, looking down at her. Sarah glanced back out at the silent party with a frown.

“Sarah, all I did was make the potion that would make you forget everything.” Though they were more in private, he still kept his voice low. Sarah looked back at him, a little perturbed.

“You also made that spell to lock me in the fantasy ball, remember?” She knew this to be a fact. She witnessed it through Jareth’s memories. “A silly illusion to keep me locked in so you could force Toby and I to stay here, as I recall.”

“I did not choose how the spell chose to manifest, Sarah.” A look of confusion furrowed his angular brow. “The curious part was that the crystals itself, though, yes, born of my own magic, had chosen a ball. A ‘fantasy’ ball. But it was no illusion, Sarah… It was of the future. The path we were taking. I realized it the moment I saw you had changed. You were fae there, didn’t you notice that?”

Sarah dropped her gaze to her dress, then back up to Jareth’s icy blue, and owl black eyes. She didn’t know what to feel. He was looking at her sincerely, and she knew he must have meant it. She wasn’t the one who could mess with time. It seemed reasonable to believe that someone so closely involved with the time flow might also see the future.

Of course, it made sense to Sarah the more she thought about it. In that peach dream, she had felt that connection between them. Devoid of memory of what she was trying to accomplish, the part of her that had fallen in love with Jareth was left unopposed. The scary part was that it would have worked had he not started to break the potion’s effects. As she recalled, he even deposited her where she found a replica of her own room. The moment she broke the remaining effects over her, the whole room tore itself apart.

_ But what no one knew is that the king of the goblins had fallen in love with the girl, and he had given her certain powers. _

She stared at the goblin king for a long and hard moment, recalling her own words she had spoken in reference to her book. A book she never knew the origin of. A book that chronicled the events that would eventually take place.

Sarah shook her head clear. She was getting herself distracted. Jareth was waiting patiently as he usually was. He was watching the ball, leaning on the pillar then with one shoulder. He didn’t look at her when she started to speak.

“So, what's supposed to happen now? We perform a small magic show and we are married?”

He narrowed his eyes at whatever he was looking at. “It’s not a show. A show is far more… Planned… It’s a melding of magic. I’m afraid it’s going to be quite messy. Usually the very last thing we would do, but it appears we may be doing this a tad sooner.”

Madoc, as it could have been no one else in the skull-like mask and pirate-like hat, walked up from around the pillar and stood close behind Jareth. Jareth must have noticed him already because he didn’t even flinch when he started to whisper to him.

“Yes, I saw…” Jareth murmured.

Sarah peered over to where he was looking and saw nothing. She looked at Jareth and Madoc in confused alarm.

“Nothing to worry about, precious,” he said, grinning. Then he offered his white gloved hand. “Come with me. We will have to be a bit unorthodox.”

Jareth led her to the dance floor swiftly, and a hush fell over the crowd as they all turned to peer at them expectantly. Sarah spotted Oberon and Titania nearby, when Madoc stepped over to them and began to discuss something in a very serious manner. She was trying to listen in when Jareth cut her off.

“Princess, I need you to focus.” He gently tore her gaze away with a hand against her cheek. The silk of his glove was soft and cool. “Now… I do believe your wish last night was quite effective. If you could say your words once more, love?”

“I wish you would marry me, right now?” Sarah was very on edge. Something was going on and nobody was telling her anything.

“You have to mean it, love. Focus.” Jareth’s voice was like honey, and for whatever reason, it made her relax then.

The very moment that she focused on the connection, something got hot between them. Then, Sarah looked down in alarm, realizing a ball of light was beginning to manifest. Jareth grabbed her hands and with a sudden rush of air that would have knocked her away had he not done so, the small ball of light gave off an explosive flash.

Light seared from between them, the relentless gusting of air, then slowly Sarah heard music. The wind and light seemed to react suddenly, and the music became much stronger, and there was a sound like chimes.

All of her nerves were alight. It was neither pleasant nor painful, but the ringing in her ears from the explosion of noise hurt.

Sarah realized her eyes were closed, and she opened them. The area around them was encased in crystal, the dimming light emanating from within the crystals themselves reflecting and refracting around its many facets, and the music hummed quieter within them, the melodic chimes coming from their movements.

Sarah watched the crystals slowly retract, as if it were ice that was turning into a gas, though without the steam. The light and music stopped completely, and Sarah frowned.

One crystal remained intact. And there was someone encased inside it. Horrified, Sarah realized it was Maeve. She was frozen in a state of panic. A hand raised as if to block off the magic, and her other arm over her eyes protecting them from the light. Then it sunk in that she was frozen in place merely feet away from Sarah.

The rest of the guests in the room were unharmed, thankfully.

Titania, Oberon, and Madoc were standing around the crystal structure, while the other guests had backed off.

“I have to say, I am quite impressed,” Oberon muttered, lifting up his deer head mask. “They make quite the pair, don’t they?”

“I told you she has a lot of potential,” Madoc responded to his brother, crossing his arms.

“Gentleman, let us not count our chickens before they hatch,” Titania responded airly. She turned her head to look at Sarah. Then her eyes flicked to something behind her, and her expression darkened.

Sarah turned to look. Jareth was already stepping in front of her. Agitated, Sarah peeked out around him and blanched.

Toby was squaring up on Jareth. His face was covered in a massive scar that extended down the side of his face and down his neck. With sickening realization, Sarah realized that scar must have been Jareth’s handiwork. He really tried to kill him!

Jareth must have known Sarah was planning on trying to approach her brother, because his hand shot out and forcefully shoved her shoulder so she was behind him again.

“Well, well, Toby,” Titania greeted. “I see you are well?”

He growled at her, baring his sharp fangs dangerously. Oberon grinned in a familiar way, stepping forward.

“It would be unwise to start a fight here when you are outnumbered, boy,” Madoc cut his brother off before he could speak or do anything.

“Let her go,” Toby sneered. “Or I’ll rip all your heads off. One by one.”

“How cute,” Oberon giggled. It was high and shrill, and felt like ice. “If he wants to play, let him play, Madoc. Why spoil my fun?”

Sarah pushed off of Jareth forcefully and called out to her brother, “Toby!”

Several things happened at once inside the span of a single moment.

Once Sarah had pushed Jareth away from her, he let go and stumbled forward. The second Sarah called out to Toby, Jareth tried turn around and reach back out to Sarah. Madoc and Oberon both lurched forward. Titania stamped her foot and a leafy vine exploded through the floor.

But nobody was a match for the speed that Toby had. He was not just a thrall. He was a fully fledged vampire.

The second set of of things that happened within that single moment. Because Jareth had turned his back on Toby, Toby practically teleported behind him and grabbed Jareth by the back of his neck, and threw him into Oberon and Madoc who had made barely a few steps of progress closer. The power of the throw shattered Titania’s vine, and even cracked the crystal that held Maeve.

And by the time Sarah had even soaked any of this in, Toby had her by her throat, a hand out as if he were about to stab straight through her with his nails.

And the final microsecond left of the single moment, Sarah realized Jareth had been right.

There was no way she could get through to him. He had been a one year old when she last saw him. Jareth had been right. And now, here she is. A damsel in distress once again because she didn’t listen to him. Because she was too stubborn to “fear” Jareth.

Sarah frowned at Toby. He was stuck as if frozen. She looked around and realized quickly that everyone was.

Jareth was still cracking the crystal mid-flight, wood shards from the vine suspended mid-air, Oberon and Madoc were hovering just above the floor, and Titania was in the middle of jumping backwards.

Sarah, in her panic and sense of self-preservation, had somehow stopped time.

No. Not stopped.

Toby was moving. Very, very slowly. So was everything else. But there was the problem of his hand around her neck. By the moment it was growing tighter and tighter. She needed to break free. Too bad her neck was thin enough that he could wrap his fingers nearly all the way around her neck, otherwise she would have just stepped back and away.

She tried to yank at his hand, but found that time slowing down made things nearly impossible to move. Even his skin was solid like rock.

Then she slapped her forehead.

“Duh, Sarah! Just teleport!” she scolded herself.

Successfully, she teleported off a few feet. Unfortunately that also meant time apparently returned to its normal pace. Toby jabbed at the air, Oberon and Madoc hit the floor, a wood shard sliced through Sarah’s sleeve, and the crystal holding Maeve shattered upon Jareth’s impact. Maeve lay limply where she fell among the shards of glass, blood seeping from various cuts and puncture wounds that had been left.

Toby snarled and crouched as if to pounce on Sarah. Jareth lurched onto his feet, raising a hand as if he intended to force choke him.

The guests in the room reacted in various ways. A few screamed, others ran forward to assist, and others still stood slack-jawed. It was chaos, but then.-

“ENOUGH!”

The voice echoed throughout the room, and everyone and everything grew still.

The hooded and cloaked figures from before had entered, and were glaring with blood red eyes. One took his hood off.

He had a magnificent scar down his cheek, and a chunk of one of his pointed ears was missing. His limp and greasy hair fell like torn and dirty rags around his face. The eye near the scar was milky white, and very much appeared to be blind.

“Go retrieve your daughter and her chew toy,” he snapped to one of the hooded members.

“Rhanforth.You and your Court are not welcome,” Titania sneered icily, gesturing to Maeve’s limp form. “I do not know why you see fit to invite yourselves in. None of this was any of your business.”

“A coronation of a new fae Queen? I’d say that is my business,” he objected, narrowing his eyes at her. One of the hooded fellows approached Maeve, but Jareth side-stepped, raising his other hand towards him. “Step aside, boy.”

“After your official declaration of war, Rhanforth, you lost your rights to any of our affairs,” Madoc reminded him, crossing his arms. “As for Maeve, she still belongs to my court and will stand trial. I recommend you lot leave my castle of your own power before I throw you out.”

The temperature in the room dropped severely as Rhanforth smiled in a way that did not touch his glaring eyes.

Sarah looked away for a moment, realizing then that Toby was in that crouched position still. The one hooded figure going to retrieve Maeve was frozen mid-step. How did Jareth stop them from moving entirely?

“Very well,” Rhanforth sneered, curling his upper lip. He gestured and the others, including the frozen hooded guy, and they disappeared. Before he disappeared, he grinned coldly. “I will be back, Madoc. But next time I will have brought an army with me.”

And with that said he, too, disappeared.


	8. Unreal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took a while because I skipped ahead and wrote a chapter in the future.  
> Alsooooooo  
> Major major major warnings ahead. Traumatic kind of warnings.

After a quick clean up, there was a few very short and uncomfortable conversations before Titania, Oberon and Madoc just pulled the Seelie and Unseelie court leaders into an emergency war meeting while Maeve and Toby were put into separate cells somewhere in Madoc’s castle.

Sarah just wanted to go home.

Things were chaotic as they were then, and she felt overwhelmed and exhausted. That and her whole body felt like most of her limbs were asleep. They tingled incessantly, and never stopped no matter what position she moved to. She twisted a few times uncomfortably in her seat while the room tumbled quietly with hushed conversation. Jareth has asked her if she was feeling alright, and she said she was feeling a bit uncomfortable, but other than that neither of them spoke to each other.

Besides the uncomfortable tingling sensation, Sarah was also feeling dread. Her stomach felt twisted in a very uncomfortable way, her heart hammering at a restless pace, her chest felt tight, and her breathing remained fast paced as though she were still being attacked.

“Sarah, are you sure you are feeling ok?” Jareth looked at her in concern. Of course he could probably hear every tiny breath she made, and likely her heart rate, too.

“I’m fine, I’m just anxious is all,” she muttered quietly.

“Let’s go take a walk, precious,” he said as he stood up and offered his hand. “It’s a bit stuffy in here.”

Gratefully, she took his hand and together they navigated their way outside.

Sarah had forgotten for a bit that Madoc’s castle was in an area of constant snow. It was never something she had witnessed before, but here they stood. It was beautiful, she thought.

Despite the long silent moment taking in the silent beauty, her anxiety never ceased. Sarah saw Jareth was being physically afflicted by it as well.

“I really just want to go home, Jareth,” she whispered. She didn’t know why she whispered, there was nobody else around but him.

“I know, precious,” he said quietly.

They stood there for another silent minute. Sarah let her mind wander. She mentally went over the events, reflecting on the sensation that had overwhelmed her, and how her whole body had been tingling ever since.

“Jareth?” He looked at her. For a moment she was distracted by his looks. The wind was ruffling his wild feathery hair, revealing glittering blue drop earrings adorning his long, pointed ears. She’d never noticed them before. He was prettier than anything she’d ever seen, and for a moment, she forgot her own anxiety. She scarcely could believe she was married to him.

“Believe it, precious.”

“My thoughts aren’t private anymore are they?”

“Not from me.”

Sarah stuck out her lower lip and frowned at him. It wasn’t altogether unpleasant of a situation, but he didn’t need to know how pretty he was. If his head got any bigger…

Sarah redirected her thoughts forcefully to the snow and if Jareth kept listening to her internal monologue he was going to find out what would happen.

“And what would happen, love?”

“That’s it!” Sarah suddenly lurched herself towards him and pushed him off balance. Taken by surprise, seemingly, he fell into the snow. He stared up at her, eyes widened for a moment. But then he grinned wickedly.

Sarah let out a shriek as a projectile of snow shot out of the snow bank and smacked her shoulder.

“Oh, it’s on now, bird brain!” Sarah shouted, kicking at the snow, sending the powder flying in a sheet at Jareth.

“Bird brain? Really?” He wipes his face off of the cold flakes and stood up, crouching. “You will regret that, sweetheart.”

Sarah turned and ran as fast as she could through the snow, a mischievous grin rivaling his upon her face. Freedom. She felt free. She ran faster than she had ever run before. Power surged through her she had never felt before. She felt like she could run forever. Into the pine trees she disappeared. She knew Jareth followed silently behind her. He was an owl. Diving between trees, she dared to look behind her.

He was not there.

She slowed, disappointed and turned her course to go back. She walked out, carefully. Looking left and right. He was nowhere. He couldn’t have gotten far.

Then a loud screeching sound came from behind her, and before she could react, she was face first into the snow, powerful talons around her arms, pressing her in. Just as quickly, suddenly she was going up and up and up. She wiped her face clear of snow and saw in shock he was flying. The ground was already so far below. She felt her stomach drop and she reached up to grab onto the wrists of the great talons that were enclosed around her upper arms.

“Jareth!”

He let out a screech and tossed her.

Down she fell. The ground was rushing towards her, but once she got to falling, she realized she was not afraid. She looked up and saw Jareth was keeping pace with her descent. He would catch her. She was not in any danger.

But there was something Sarah wanted to try then.

She stretched out her arms.

Her descent slowed, and when her feet swung forward, she realized she was no longer wearing a dress or had toes. Instead, she had talons, much like Jareth. Except hers were covered in white feathers, and were three claws facing forward, and one claw facing back, and then she was flying. She followed Jareth’s movements. He screeched at her. Then she dipped down and grabbed a claw full of snow from the ground, kicking it up in a sheet behind her. She launched the snow she held effortlessly up at the barn owl beast, and they continued their… Snow flight.

He’d dip down and gather some, and fling it at her. Dodging, weaving, screeching at one another. Sarah showed off the fact that she could hoot when he could not. He would body slam her on occasion, and she would return the favor. She was larger than he was, she noticed, and her wingspan was longer by a meter or so. She kicked up far more snow than he did. Then, slowly, it became less a snow fight then it did a dance in the sky, the glitter of kicked up snow swirling between them as they flew in unison. Sometimes opposite of the other in circles, sometimes weaving through the tall forest of cedar, hemlock, pine, fir and spruce trees.

Then they met in midair and locked claws, hurtled themselves down to the ground, spinning. At the last second they veered off. Then the circled back around and collided with each other near the ground, both returning to their normal forms in an explosion of snow, and Jareth fell backward into the snow, dragging her down with him. They laid there, laughing breathlessly. From their sweeping movements in that small second before landing like that, they had almost cleared the small spot of snow. There was a cushion of long bent over frozen grass.

“So it seems I’m not the only ‘bird brain,’ precious,” he said slyly, grinning up at her, breathing heavily from the exhilaration. Sarah laughed.

“I love you, Jareth,” Sarah said breathlessly, smiling happily down at him. His sly grin faltered a moment, as he stared in a state between shock and a laugh as his breathing hitched. With a sudden movement, he twisted them so he was atop her. His hands splayed out on either side of her.

“That’s strange…” he muttered down to her, looking perplexed.

“What?” Sarah blinked up at him. He didn’t answer immediately, only stared at her with his mismatched eyes.

“It wasn’t as though you didn’t before, but hearing you say it…” he said finally. “Your words have power, my love. In more ways than usual.”

“That was a splendid display, Jareth, Sarah,” came Madoc’s voice.

Jareth tilted his head slightly as Sarah twisted a bit to see past his shoulder. A little way away stood the wintery Erlking. He still had on the tight, black outfit from earlier, though no skull mask or pirate hat. His snow-white hair spilled down his broad shoulders, his gray skin seeming more pale and tighter than usual. Had he become thinner? His light grey eyes seemed less glow a little less than usual.

“Is the summit over?” Sarah asked.

“No, I’m afraid not,” Madoc responded gravely. He stepped closer. “We’re taking a break. It’s not going anywhere at the moment. We are all rather indecisive.”

“What’s there to be decided? They’ve already declared war on us,” Sarah said, frowning.

Jareth sat up onto his knees and twisted to make eye contact with Madoc. For a long moment, it seemed as though there was a silent exchange, but then Jareth looked back down to Sarah.

“They aren’t debating over the fact that there is a war, Sarah,” Jareth said finally. “There are a multitude of other things that are involved.”

“In any case,” Madoc raised his hand, as if silencing the matter. “I walked by a window and managed to see some fantastic aerial displays. I didn’t know you were an owl, Sarah? A snowy owl, at that.”

“I didn’t either,” she muttered, blushing.

“Jareth, would it be ok if I took a walk with my new niece?”

Jareth rocked back onto his heels and stood up, nodding. After he passed Madoc, he turned and winked at Sarah before he left for the door to go back inside.

_ Come find me when you are done. _

Sarah blinked. Telepathy. She forgot Jareth could do that. In every regard, she likely was able to as well. She’d forgotten that was something he could do.

She stood up and brushed off her knees. That’s when she noticed she was wearing something completely different.

First, she was wearing white feathery boots, and tights with a short skirted dress, and a white and black-barred feathery cloak that was not too unlike Jareth’s. Raising a hand, she realized she was wearing a hood, rather than having a bone collar. That suited her just fine.

“It seems fitting that you would be a winter fae,” Madoc said, breaking the silence. “Of course, I knew it would come most naturally to you.”

“How so?” Sarah looked up at him.

“Your strong-willed and passionate personality fits with both fire and ice elementals. It could have gone both ways. Fortunately for me, I won my bet,” he chuckled.

More silence followed. It wasn’t that it was awkward, but the atmosphere just felt deep and heavy. He sighed.

“You know, Sarah, if Jareth hadn’t married you, I certainly would have,” Madoc admitted. “It’s strange in so many ways. You, who used to be human. I, who hated humans. And yet… Around you. It is as if the world turns and changes for you. Isn’t that curious?”

“I… Don’t know what you mean…”

“Not to be taken so literally, of course.” Madoc raised his hands as if dismissing her confusion. “I simply mean you have quite the presence, my dear Sarah. You do not cease to impress me…” He trailed off and shook his head. “I’m rambling now. I actually wanted to give you a warning.” He looked at her in a very grave and serious manner. “I have my hopes it will never come to this, but beware. Rhanforth is not afraid to play dirty. Do not give him any opening of any kind. Do not show him mercy. Do you understand?”

Sarah nodded, her throat going dry. Madoc smiled sadly at her.

His head jerked suddenly and he stared hard into the trees, his expression hardening. Sarah turned to see what he was looking at.

“Sarah, get Jareth out here now,” Madoc ordered. He caught her arm when she moved to run towards the castle. “No, just call to him. He will hear.”

“Oh, uh…” Sarah was about to call out to him but before she even did so, Jareth had already appeared. His expression was also alarmed. Sarah turned to see what the issue was but Jareth’s gloved hand shot over her eyes and covered them. Disgruntled, she made an impatient noise and brushed his hand away.

But what she saw made her wish she hadn’t.

Trudging toward her was what appeared to be Ambrosius carrying what was left of Sir Didymus.

All the horror movies in the world, with gore worse than this, could never prepare you for seeing it in person. There’s a bit of a mental barrier between the screen and real life that allows for room for disassociation. Seeing it in real life is another matter altogether. You’ve never really seen it. Because it was never really real to you until it’s right in front of you.

Her eyes refused to understand what it was she was looking at, at first. It originally appeared to be Sir Didymus simply slumped over. But as the dog trudged tiredly closer, Sarah could see that Sir Didymus was sitting straight up, and that he did not have a head. He was actually held to Ambrosius’s back by his own sword, pinned straight through his small body like a taxidermist would a butterfly to preserve its beauty.

“Oh my gods!” Titania had apparently joined somewhere behind. There was more screaming. But it all sounded so far away. Sarah stood in the dark, by herself, far away somewhere. Just her and Sir Didymus.

A horrible, twisting thought reached her and she grew numb.

Her anxiety. Her want to go home. It was because the Labyrinth was in trouble. She needed to get there now.

Without thinking, she took a running leap and launched herself into the air, towards the direction she knew to be home. With powerful white wings, she soared swiftly through the sky, beating her wings against the cold air in rapid strong strokes. She heard a screeching distantly behind her.

_ Sarah… _

“We have to get home!” Sarah thought back to him. “Do not stop me!”

_ You are going to exhaust yourself like that. _

“I don’t care!” she thought. She screeched angrily.

_ Sarah, will you stop for a second!? We will get there faster by teleporting! _

Sarah stopped mid flight and dropped like a stone out of the air. She slowed her descent in time to land not-so-gracefully, but formed back to herself before causing herself to trip and stumble a little over her own two feet. Jareth landed near to her not much longer after. Her arms ached and her lungs burned for oxygen, but she didn’t care. Nothing mattered more right now than getting home. Jareth was taking too long. She wanted to scream. To hit something. Why wasn’t he moving fast enough!?

Jareth rounded on her suddenly and raised his hand, causing Sarah felt as though he had just thrown a huge bucket of ice water into her face. Shocked, she stared at him, feeling her mostly dry face.

“Wh-Why did you do that for?” she asked.

“You were panicking,” Jareth growled. “We can’t lose our…” He trailed off. Shaking his head he lifted up a crystal orb he had just summoned and offered a hand to Sarah. “Come.”

He had only glanced at the crystal before they teleported, and for a quick moment, Sarah swore he had paled. In fact, when they reached their destination, he took a moment to look away from the crystal orb. Slowly, he lifted his gaze to the castle.

Sarah was preoccupied with Jareth at first, then at the fact that he had teleported them outside of the labyrinth.

Sarah turned and for a strange moment, she had no idea where they were. It wouldn’t register with her. There was rubble all around, smoke, and beyond the smoke was a huge fire. Thick black smoke obscured the view.

“Where are we?”

“The castle…”

“We are outside, Jareth…” Sarah stared at him.

“The castle…” he repeated. He lifted his hand and shakily pointed at the huge pillar of black smoke.

“That’s not…” Sarah trailed off as she realized what she was looking at, her eyes widening.

“That’s the castle…”

They walked through the piles of rubble. Hardly anything was standing that Sarah could see. Jareth left her behind as she made her way carefully through the piles of brick. Between them, Sarah knew there were bodies, but she wasn’t going to look. She didn’t know if she could handle it. It wasn’t until she saw Jareth looking at a red mound laying on the ground that she dared look.

It was Ludo. He was surrounded by boulders, and behind him was Hoggle, who laid spread eagle facing up against the ground. A dagger lay not far from the dwarf’s limp fingers. He had died fighting, Sarah numbly thought. Sarah looked up and saw Jareth had picked up his pace over the rubble, nearly tripping on the unstable surfaces. Sarah tried to keep up with him, but he had longer legs than her, and was far more lithe. The large trees remained standing, somehow, and as Sarah chased Jareth through them, she realized they were running towards the huge pillar of smoke.

The Labyrinth had been bad. But the Goblin City was far worse. Corpse heaps were strewn about everywhere. Goblin, hobgoblin, dwarf. It didn’t seem to matter what they were. They were either in a burning pile, or stuck upon spikes in various gruesome ways.

Vaguely, Sarah recalled hearing this being an intimidation tactic. But she was far too numb by then to care.

It wasn’t until she saw Jareth pushing through burning wreckage in a panic that it really hit her.

She heard a noise. Between a “no” and a agonizing sob. And it took her far too long to realize that it was Jareth. Once Sarah had reached him, pushing past the falling apart buildings wordlessly, she saw him kneeling down next to a large blond wolf laying in a pool of blood and a pile of small goblins in varying, horrifying states of torture. Sarah realized with a sickening jolt that the wolf was missing it’s jaw. Ripped completely off. With a second sickening jolt, she realized that it was Lucy.

Jareth was bent over, his gloved hands covering his face. His shoulders shook.His cloak, his knees and boots, even his hands were soaked with blood and caked in soot.

None of this felt real. This was just a bad dream.

Jareth slammed his fists into the puddle of blood, splashing more sooty blood onto him. He rose up suddenly and whirled on Sarah as if he meant to hurt her.

“This…” he said his voice dangerously quiet. “She planned this… Maeve… She distracted us…”

Sarah was terrified. Jareth’s eyes were both solidly black, blood, soot, and tears ran down his face. His sharp fae teeth were bared into a snarl as he spoke. He looked at her without seeing her.

All just a bad, bad dream.

“I’ll tear her apart,” he seethed. “I’ll rip her apart. Limb by limb. Slowly. I will relish in her cries for death. She will beg me for death.”

Just a nightmare. That’s it.

Sarah collapsed to the ground. She hadn’t fainted. Or at least she wasn’t dizzy. She was numb all over that she couldn’t control her body giving out on her. She tried to get up, but felt that she couldn’t. It was as if all the energy had been sucked out of her. Her eyes drooped, threatening sleep. Part of her understood that Jareth had just sapped her strength from her through their connection. Part of her understood that the entire time they'd been here he had been doing this.

That seemed to snap Jareth out of it. His eyes widened as they returned to their normal color.

The last thing Sarah saw as she drifted off to sleep was Jareth picking her up.

Only a dream...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So now that it's not a spoiler anymore... :D here references I doodled. (teehee)  
> https://www.deviantart.com/msyin/art/Jareth-Doodles-769567041  
> https://www.deviantart.com/msyin/art/Sarah-Doodles-772141968  
> They are a bit rough, but heh... I had fun doodling them.


End file.
